INFORTMATION TECHNOLOGY : GOOGLE-MOTOROLA DECISION DUE ON 13 FEBRUARY.

The European Commission is expected to hand down a decision, on 13 February, on Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility. The investigation, suspended in December 2011 to give the firm from Mountain View time to provide additional information, has resumed. It concerns the 97 billion merger announced in August of last year.

With the acquisition of this mobile telephony subsidiary set up by Motorola in early 2011, Google would strengthen its universe of Android smart phones (and tablets) and take possession of more than 17,000 patents held by the smart phone manufacturer. In the context of the patent war' being waged in the information technologies sector, the search engine giant presented its proposed takeover as a counterattack to "protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies".

At the end of 2011, the EU executive...