Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) authorized the acquisition by Qualcomm River Holdings B.V., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, of NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI).  The acquisition has now received 8 of the 9 approvals around the world, with China remaining.

Qualcomm cooperated with the Commission and the KFTC to obtain authorization, and committed to exclude certain near-field communication (NFC) patents from the proposed transaction and ensure that NXP licenses those patents to third parties.  Qualcomm also committed not to assert the NFC patents it will acquire from NXP and maintain interoperability between Qualcomm’s baseband chipsets and NXP’s NFC chips and rivals baseband chipsets and NFC chips.  Qualcomm also will continue to offer a license to MIFARE on terms commensurate with those offered by NXP today.

“We are pleased that both the European Commission and the Korean Fair Trade Commission have granted authorization of the NXP acquisition, and we are optimistic that China will expeditiously grant its clearance” said Steve Mollenkopf, Chief Executive Officer, Qualcomm Incorporated. “Acquiring NXP is complementary to Qualcomm’s global portfolio, providing tremendous scale in automotive, IoT, security and networking and will greatly accelerate our ability to execute and create value in new and adjacent opportunities.”