EU Court Rejects Broadcom Bid to Block Document Request

The General Court of the European Union rejected a legal bid by Broadcom Inc on Monday to block an antitrust request for U.S. legal documents. The documents are part of an ongoing investigation into the chipmaker's 2023 acquisition of VMware.

Broadcom had petitioned the Luxembourg-based court in May for an interim measure against the European Commission. The company argued that the demand for documents violated U.S. attorney-client privilege concerning confidential communications. However, the court ruled that EU law only protects communications with external lawyers and does not extend that privilege to in-house counsel.

The presiding judge determined that the European Commission must be the authority to decide if specific information is necessary to identify infringements of EU competition rules. The court concluded that allowing a company under investigation to determine document relevance would seriously undermine the Commission's investigative powers.