The U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block enterprise tech giant HPE from acquiring Juniper Networks, the networking firm, citing antitrust concerns.
In a complaint filed in California federal court Thursday, the Justice Department said the deal would consolidate the market for enterprise wireless equipment from three major vendors — HPE, Cisco, and Juniper — down to two.
HPE announced its intention to acquire Juniper Networks for $14 billion in January 2024, adding to its portfolio of networking brands. (Several years earlier, HPE had bought Aruba Networks for around $3 billion.) HPE and Juniper pitched the deal as an AI play, saying the acquisition would allow the combined companies to deliver more “competitive” and “comprehensive” AI solutions.
In August, the European Commission gave the go-ahead for HPE’s purchase of Juniper, concluding that the proposed transaction “would raise no competition concerns in [the] European Economic Area.” The Department of Justice recently signaled to HPE that the U.S. government was more skeptical, given the deal concerns the American market.