German car manufacturers obtain approval from the US antitrust authority to purchase Nokia Maps

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) – German carmakers BMW, Audi and Mercedes have won U.S. antitrust approval to buy Nokia’s mapping business for about 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion), the Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday. The deal, announced in early August, was included on the FTC’s list of uncontroversial transactions that received approval from the FTC or the Department of Justice. The two agencies share antitrust enforcement responsibilities. The three German premium automakers will have an equal stake in the industry, known as Here, and could allow automakers to offer new premium features such as autonomous driving in luxury cars, changing the pecking order between automakers, their parts suppliers and rivals in the field software such as Uber and Google. Here’s main competitor is Google Maps. In addition, it competes with the smaller Dutch mapping company TomTom. Here was created by Nokia following its $8.1 billion acquisition of Navteq in 2008. (Reporting by Diane Bartz and Ilona Wissenbach; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)