What an­titrust chal­lenge? Il­lu­mi­na com­pletes $8B Grail buy­out while FTC, EU probes re­main on­go­ing

In de­fi­ance of FTC and EU scruti­ny, Il­lu­mi­na said Wednes­day it has com­plet­ed its multi­bil­lion dol­lar ac­qui­si­tion of Grail, set­ting off what’s like­ly to be a con­tentious brawl ahead of the US reg­u­la­tor’s tri­al ex­pect­ed to be­gin next week.

The fi­nal­iza­tion of the $8 bil­lion buy­out comes as the FTC sued to block the move in March and the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion con­tin­ues its on­go­ing reg­u­la­to­ry re­view. While there is no le­gal im­ped­i­ment pre­vent­ing the deal clos­ing in the US, Il­lu­mi­na said, the com­pa­ny will hold Grail as a sep­a­rate en­ti­ty dur­ing the EU au­dit to pre­vent Eu­ro­pean reg­u­la­tors from run­ning out the clock to kill the deal.

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