On April 8, 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”) issued a public announcement, conditionally approving the acquisition of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (“Cypress”) by Infineon Technologies AG (“Infineon”) (the “Transaction”).

Infineon, a German semiconductor company, is a global leader in automotive electronics, power semiconductors, and security ICs, etc. After the acquisition of Cypress, Infineon will become the eighth largest chipmaker in the world. The semiconductor products concerned in the Transaction are highly technical, the situation of the industry is complex, and the impact caused by the Transaction on the upstream and downstream industries is profound. After review, SAMR considerd that the Transaction would have or may have the effect of eliminating and restricting competition on the global automotive MCUs market.

The notification for the Transaction was filed with SAMR in August 2019. After preliminary review and further review, SAMR considered that the Transaction may raise competition concerns and decided to extend the period of further review on Febueary 2020.

In order to move forward the review process, during the review of the case, Infineon engaged T&D Associates to join its then-current anti-monopoly legal team. T&D team, led by Dr. John Ren, by exploiting the team’s rich experience in handling many conditionally approved cases, assisted Infineon to reach a practical commitment proposal with SAMR within a short period, and obtained SAMR’s conditional approval in a very quick manner.

The key stage in the final review process of the case coincided with the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, which caused inconveniencies to the anti-monopoly review. In order to obtain approval as early as possible, Dr. John Ren and his team managed to proactively and efficiently communicate with SAMR, provided supplementary materials in a timely manner, and had multiple rounds of consultations with SAMR on how to reduce the adverse impact of the Transaction on the competition of the relevant markets, by means of emails, letters, telephone conferences, etc. Finally, we reached a practical commitment proposal with SAMR within the shortest period of time, and mitiaged the impact of the epidemic on the case review to the greatest extent possible.

Infineon spoke highly of Dr. John Ren and his team for the legal services provided during the review of the Transaction, and expressed sincere gratitude to T&D team for assisting Infineon to successfully obtain SAMR’s approval.