CCI approves Fujitsu-Panasonic-DBJ JV

Fair trade regulator CCI has approved the proposed joint venture between three Japaneseentities -- Fujitsu, Panasonic and Development Bank of Japan -- saying that the deal does not raise anti-competition concerns in India.

Fujitsu and Panasonic have presence in India, while Development Bank of Japan, owned by the government of Japan, does not have any operations here.

As per the deal, the proposed joint venture would "specialise in system large-scale integration design and development of certain logic integrated circuit products".

An agreement in this regard was inked earlier this year between Fujitsu, Fujitsu Semiconductor Ltd (FSL) and Panasonic. Besides, a financing agreement was also executed between Fujitsu, FSL, Panasonic and Development Bank of Japan.

In an order released today, the Competition Commission of India said that "the proposed combination is not likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India".

The Commission observed that Fujitsu and its subsidiary, FSL, have had no sales of logic IC products in India in the last two financial years.

"As regards Panasonic, as per the information provided in the notice, the only affiliate that sells semiconductor/logic IC products into India is Panasonic Asia Pacific based inSingapore, which has insignificant sales of semiconductor/ logic IC products in India," CCI noted.

"It is, therefore, observed that there is no horizontal overlap between the Parties in India. Further, as stated in the notice, there is no vertical relationship between the parties in India," it added.

Further, CCI also noted that there are various other major players present in the semiconductor and IC product market in the country.

Fujitsu, a global IT company, offers a wide range of products, solutions and services including servers, telecom and network infrastructure products, personal computers,mobile phones.

Its subsidiary FSL would be contributing assets relating to its semiconductor business to the joint venture.

Panasonic is engaged in the development and engineering of electronic technologies, among others.