HPE-Juniper Settles with US DOJ on $14-bn Merger with Conditions to Preserve Competition

The US Department of Justice had announced that it had reached a settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper Networks that allows their merger to continue. The agreement, which is subject to court’s approval, resolves the justice department’s lawsuit challenging HPE’s acquisition of Juniper.

In January last year, HPE announced that it will acquire Juniper in an all-cash deal for $40 per share, representing an equity value of nearly $14bn. The justice department had sued to block the deal, citing that the deal would potentially stifle competition and lead to only two companies— Cisco Systems and HPE—controlling more than 70% of the networking equipment market in the US.

“Our agreement with the DOJ paves the way to close HPE’s acquisition of Juniper Networks and preserves the intended benefits of this deal for our customers and shareholders, while creating greater competition in the global networking market,” a report by Business Wire quoted Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE, as saying. Combined with the innovation from HPE in hybrid cloud, storage, computer and software, networking customers will now have a much stronger path to speed-up and simplify their artificial intelligence transformations, the report further added.

“This marks an exciting step forward in delivering on a critical customer need – a complete portfolio of modern, secure networking solutions to connect their organizations and provide essential foundations for hybrid cloud and AI,” the report has quoted Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim, as saying.

The said settlement between the companies and the Department of Justice requires HPE to divest its its global ‘Instant On’ campus and branch WLAN business, including all assets, intellectual property, research and development personnel, and customer relationships, to a justice department-approved buyer within 180 days. It also mandates parties to hold an auction to license Juniper’s AI operations for Mist source code—an important component in modern WLAN systems.  

“The agreement also ensures that key software assets will be available to rivals looking to compete with the merged company,” the Department of Justice said in a release on June 28.