Semiconductor Mergers Continuously Under Strict Scrutiny Of China's Antitrust Authority

Although at the backdrop of Covid-19 outbreak, China's merger review practice has not been negatively affected. Currently, the average review time is 8 days shorter than that in last year. According to public statistics, the first quarter of 2020 witnessed completed review of 111 filings by China's antitrust authority, the State Administration for Market Regulation ("SAMR"), with a slight year-on-year growth of 0.9%.

With the period of economic downturn, people may have the question or anticipation: May SAMR relax its scrutiny standard to encourage M&A activities? The recent merger review practice in China answered it at least does not apply to the semiconductor sector.

On the 8^th and 16^th of 2020 April, SAMR respectively released the first and second case it imposed remedies in this year. Both of them are related to semiconductor sector, and they are Infineon/Cypress deal and the Nvidia/Mellanox deal. Although it may be a coincidence, it at least suggests two