Nokia on Tuesday announced that it has finally succeeded in getting an approval from the Chinese government to sell its handset business to Microsoft.
Back in September last year, Nokia agreed to sell its mobile handset business to Microsoft for 5.4 billion euro ($7.4 billion). The deal, which was expected to have closed by March, was delayed because of an antitrust review.
In a statement on Tuesday Nokia declared that “Nokia and Microsoft have now received regulatory approvals from the People’s Republic of China, the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and numerous other jurisdictions.”
Both the companies said that the transaction is expected to be closed by the end of this month. Nokia shares increased to 2.9 percent to 5.48 euros following the approval announcement.
Nokia, as a phone maker, has been paying fees for using rival firm’s technology licenses as well as been charging for its own. Analysts claim that after the deal Nokia would be free to push up those fees.
Media reports claimed that the tech giants Google and Samsung had earlier approached the Chinese regulators to make it certain that this deal would not result in higher licensing fees.
However, Nokia clearly stated that there had been no request from the authorities to change its patent practices.
“The regulatory approval process has involved a thorough review of Nokia’s patent licensing practices by several competition authorities around the world,” said Nokia in a statement.
“During that process, no authority has challenged Nokia’s compliance with its FRAND undertakings related to standard-essential patents (licensing on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms) or requested that Nokia make changes to its licensing program or royalty terms.”
