According to reports, the European Union will investigate Amazon’s $ 1.7 billion acquisition of sweeping robot maker iRobot this deal.
The European Union is concerned about privacy because iRobot’s Roomba robot vacuum can take pictures of users indoors. EU regulators have submitted a series of questions to Amazon asking about transparency. Amazon insists that there are privacy restrictions within Roomba and that the acquisition of iRobot will not give Amazon a market advantage because there are many competitors in the robot vacuum market. In the U.S., the FTC is launching a similar investigation into Amazon, but with a focus on competition.
iRobot closed up 0.97% on the day at $41.73 per share, but it was still nearly 30% below Amazon’s proposed purchase price of $59 per share, which seemed to signal that investors were skeptical that the deal would pass the review.
