A bid by Broadcom to acquire cloud technology company VMware moved forward after the European Commission (EC) accepted concessions to address competition concerns and granted conditional approval, leaving the company seeking clearance from authorities in the UK and US.

The EC stated Broadcom committed to provide access and system connections related to its fibre channel host-bus adapters to rival Marvell Technology, as well as any other potential future competitors.

Broadcom’s commitments means rivals would have “guaranteed access to the interoperability application programming interfaces as well as to the materials, tools and technical support necessary for the development and certification of third-party FC HBAs”, the EC stated.

It also offered guarantees rivals would have access to the source code for all of its current and future adapter drivers through an irrevocable open-source licence.

“The commitments offered by Broadcom will enable its only rival Marvell, to continue competing on equal footing and ensure a similar protection for any future entrants,” EC EVP Margrethe Vestager stated.

Broadcom stated it has also received clearances in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Taiwan, and foreign investment control approvals in all necessary jurisdictions.