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Britain’s competition regulator on Friday cleared Amazon’s planned $1.7 billion (roughly Rs.\u00a013,900\u00a0crore) acquisition of iRobot<\/a>, maker of the Roomba<\/a> vacuum cleaner.<\/p>\n The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had concluded that the deal would not lead to competition concerns in the UK.<\/p>\n “We’re pleased with the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s decision and are committed to supporting regulatory bodies in their work,” a spokesperson for Amazon said.<\/p>\n “We look forward to similar decisions from other regulators soon.”<\/p>\n Meanwhile, iRobot did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.<\/p>\n In April, the CMA<\/a> had launched a “Phase 1” probe into the deal which was announced in August last year as Amazon<\/a> sought to expand its stable of smart-home devices, which include the Alexa voice assistant, smart thermostats, security devices, wall mounted smart displays and a canine-like robot called Astro.<\/p>\n Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are wary of Big Tech<\/a> acquiring smaller rivals, especially those with access to big volumes of user data, and tend to demand remedies in return for approving such deals.<\/p>\n EU antitrust regulators will decide by July 6 whether to clear the deal, while the US Federal Trade Commission is also examining the acquisition.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2023<\/em><\/p>\n