On December 2nd, 2021, the FTC announced that it would move to block Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm Holding. This most recent complaint has become another link in a global chain of regulatory legal challenges and reviews that could sink Nvidia’s $40 billion bid first announced on Sept. 13,  2020.

The deal was bound to be a tough one to close from the outset as marquee Arm licensees such as Qualcomm, Alphabet, and Microsoft protested the union. However, Nvidia did manage to muster public support from Mediatek, Marvell, and Broadcom support for the transaction shortly after.