By Kim Yoo-chul
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) disapproved the proposed merger between Tokyo Electron (TEL) and Applied Materials (AMAT) in line with the latest objections by Washington for the controversial deal.
"As the AMAT-TEL merger was nullified, the FTC in Korea decided to disapprove the deal. AMAT-TEL failed to persuade us that the deal will raise no antitrust concerns," said a spokesman at the nation's top antitrust regulator, Wednesday.
Since November 2013, when the two companies announced for their planned merger, the FTC has been investigating to see if the deal would hurt fair competition in related local industries as the deal is a combination between the world's No. 1 and No. 3 semiconductor equipment makers.
By 2012, AMAT generated 2 trillion won in sales, while TEL had about 800 billion won in sales in Korea.
Although Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and leading local chip equipment makers such as Wonik earlier opposed the deal, the FTC previously reached a consensus to grant conditional approval after reviewing remedial plans.
To protect the local semiconductor equipment industry, the FTC had further asked AMAT to establish new entities for some business areas that overlapped in Korea such as chemical vapor deposition and atomic layer deposition for fair competition, a major blow for AMAT.
The FTC said it will collaborate with regulators in other countries for deals that will have negative impact on local industries.
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) disapproved the proposed merger between Tokyo Electron (TEL) and Applied Materials (AMAT) in line with the latest objections by Washington for the controversial deal.
"As the AMAT-TEL merger was nullified, the FTC in Korea decided to disapprove the deal. AMAT-TEL failed to persuade us that the deal will raise no antitrust concerns," said a spokesman at the nation's top antitrust regulator, Wednesday.
Since November 2013, when the two companies announced for their planned merger, the FTC has been investigating to see if the deal would hurt fair competition in related local industries as the deal is a combination between the world's No. 1 and No. 3 semiconductor equipment makers.
By 2012, AMAT generated 2 trillion won in sales, while TEL had about 800 billion won in sales in Korea.
Although Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and leading local chip equipment makers such as Wonik earlier opposed the deal, the FTC previously reached a consensus to grant conditional approval after reviewing remedial plans.
To protect the local semiconductor equipment industry, the FTC had further asked AMAT to establish new entities for some business areas that overlapped in Korea such as chemical vapor deposition and atomic layer deposition for fair competition, a major blow for AMAT.
The FTC said it will collaborate with regulators in other countries for deals that will have negative impact on local industries.
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