Friday, March 24, 2006
US objects to Israeli tech buyout
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. in Ramat Gan, Israel, formally withdrew its proposal near the conclusion of a rare, full-blown investigation by a US review panel over the company's plans to buy a smaller rival, Sourcefire Inc.
Check Point had been told US officials feared the transaction could endanger some of the government's most sensitive computer systems.
Lawyers for Check Point offered to attach conditions to the sale that executives believed were onerous but were intended to satisfy the concerns expressed by the review panel, the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, said one person familiar with the process. But no agreement could be reached...
Serious security concerns or a sop to the Arabs?
Yet the US government supported a bid by a UAE-based company to run our ports?
I don't know, maybe the administration of ports would not be as sensitive. But there is some irony here.
"... US officials feared the transaction could endanger some of the government's most sensitive computer systems. "
I hope those officials realise that there are bona fide US companies with not so patriotic owners and employees.
Sami al Ariyan should have been the amber light on the globalisation road.