By Ian Walker

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said Monday that it has started a formal investigation into anticipated acquisition by SK Hynix Inc of Intel Corporation's NAND and SSD business to see if the deal would lead to a "substantial lessening of competition".

The regulator said that it informed the parties of its plan on May 7 and has set a deadline of July 5 for its Phase 1 decision.

U.S. chip maker Intel in October reached a deal to sell its flash-memory manufacturing business to South Korean peer SK Hynix for about $9 billion.

Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-10-21 0325ET