The ACCC has announced it will not oppose Google’s proposed purchase of cyberdefense firm Mandiant.
According to the ACCC, Google and Mandiant did not have enough overlapping services to warrant a competition issue after consulting with customers and competitors.
Mandiant is a global provider of cybersecurity consulting services, including incident response. It also supplies cybersecurity software and managed services.
ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said that Google and Mandiant’s acquisition of cybersecurity products was unlikely to substantially diminish competition.
“The deal wouldn’t give Google the incentive or ability to shut down competitors in cloud services or cybersecurity because there are other suppliers,” says Cass-Gottieb
Additionally, the ACCC declared the deal will not be stopped, and the announcement of the provisional decision was brought forward from September 15 to today.
In 2004, Kevin Mandia founded Mandiant which he sold to Google due to their large cloud network and their ability to automate processes.
The ACCC announced it would examine the purchase of Mandiant on June 24. Google Cloud provides ‘cloud services,’ and the ACCC was asked whether this acquisition would impact competition in those industries in which Google Cloud competes on July 18.
The United States Department of Justice began investigating the Google-Mandiant transaction on March 7, long before the ACCC began its investigation.
Google’s purchase of Mandiant will contribute to Google Cloud’s existing security advantages and will enhance existing offerings to provide an “end-to-end” set of security operations in order to offer stronger support to customers.
