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U.S. Regulators Lay out a Condition on Honeywell’s Intermec Acquisition (HON)

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Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON) cleared a major stumbling block on Friday when U.S. regulators approved its planned merger with mobile computing device maker Intermec, on a condition that the company will give license to a competitor for using certain key patents used in barcode scanners.

In a statement release on Friday, Deborah Feinstein, Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition said, “Although divestiture of assets is the preferred remedy in merger cases, licensing requirements can preserve competition in markets where access to needed technology is the main barrier to entry.”

Accordingly, New Jersey based Honeywell will have to license to Italy’s Datalogic IP TECH s.r.l patents which are used to manufacturer two-dimensional bar code scanners for next twelve years.

“The proposed order gives Datalogic access to the patents it needs to enter the U.S. market immediately and restore the competition lost due to the merger,” Feinstein added.

Everett, Washington based Intermec is manufacturer of radio frequency identification (RFID) readers along with barcode scanners and some other related products. Its shareholder approved the deal in March 2013.

The deal, which is valued at $600 million, was approved by the European Union back in June. Regulators in EU said that the deal would not result in monopoly since there were many credible competitors in the barcode scanner market.








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Post Written By: Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.

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Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing.

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