EU antitrust decision on $32 billion Google-Wiz deal due by February 10
European regulators will say whether Alphabet’s largest-ever acquisition can proceed or faces a deeper competition probe.
For the first time since Google agreed to buy Wiz, one of the most important unresolved questions surrounding the deal now has a date.
European Union antitrust regulators will decide by February 10 whether to approve Alphabet’s $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz, according to a filing published on the European Commission’s website. The ruling will determine whether Google’s largest acquisition ever can proceed smoothly in Europe, or whether it will be pulled into a deeper and potentially protracted regulatory battle.
The decision looms as the final major regulatory test facing the transaction. In November, U.S. antitrust authorities cleared the deal after the Department of Justice ended its review early, an unusual move that effectively removed the most immediate threat to the acquisition in Google’s home market. That clearance, confirmed publicly by Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport, was widely seen as a significant milestone, but never the end of the story.
“Definitely, this is an important milestone, but we’re still in the journey between signing and closing,” Rappaport said at the time, underscoring that global regulatory approval remained a prerequisite.
Alphabet announced the Wiz deal last March as it sought to strengthen its cybersecurity capabilities and sharpen its competitive position in cloud computing against Amazon and Microsoft. At $32 billion, the acquisition would be Google’s largest ever.
But the size and strategic importance of the deal also place it squarely in the sights of regulators. In recent years, technology transactions have faced heightened scrutiny amid concerns that dominant companies could further entrench their market power through acquisitions. The European Commission, acting as the EU’s competition enforcer, has broad discretion: it can clear the deal outright, approve it subject to conditions, or open a full-scale investigation if it identifies serious competition concerns.
The February 10 deadline applies to the Commission’s preliminary review. A clearance at this stage would significantly reduce uncertainty around the deal’s path to closing. A deeper investigation, by contrast, could delay the transaction well into 2026, or potentially reshape it.
The European review carries particular weight for Alphabet, which is already under intense regulatory pressure on multiple fronts. In recent months, U.S. courts have ruled that the company illegally monopolized markets for online search and advertising technology, raising the prospect of structural remedies. While the Wiz acquisition has attracted far less political attention than those cases, it remains symbolically and strategically significant: a test of whether Google can still execute large-scale acquisitions in an era of aggressive antitrust enforcement.
