China's Ministry of Commerce said Thursday that it has not received any applications from Google for an anti-monopoly review on its proposed bid to acquire Motorola's mobile division.
"We have received notice of the Google-Motorola deal. China will conduct an investigation in line with the country's anti-monopoly laws once we receive an application," said an official from the ministry's anti-monopoly bureau.
The country's anti-monopoly laws require companies to ask the Chinese government for approval before consolidating if their combined global revenues exceeded 10 billion yuan (1.56 billion U.S. dollars) and if their sales revenues in China exceeded 400 million yuan during the previous fiscal year.
An anti-monopoly review is also necessary if the firms' revenues in China exceeded 2 billion yuan during the previous fiscal year and if two or more parties involved in the deal reported more than 400 million yuan in sales revenues.
Search engine giant Google Inc. on Aug. 15 announced that it has agreed to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. for approximately 12.5 billion U.S. dollars. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2011 or early 2012.