Salesforce.com is urging US and EU regulators to block Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn on the grounds that the merger is anticompetitive, reports say.
“By gaining ownership of LinkedIn’s unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage,” said Burke Norton, Salesforce’s chief legal officer, in a statement.
“Salesforce believes this raises significant antitrust and data privacy issues that need to be fully scrutinized by competition and data privacy authorities in the United States and in the European Union,” he said.
Earlier this year, Salesforce threw its hat into the ring and bid on LinkedIn, but couldn’t beat Microsoft’s $26.2 billion bid for the professional social network.
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, fired back in a statement: “Salesforce may not be aware, but the deal has already been cleared to close in the United States, Canada and Brazil. We’re committed to continuing to work to bring price competition to a CRM market in which Salesforce is the dominant participant charging customers higher prices today.”
