HPE-Juniper Integration Allowed as Judge Reviews Settlement
(Bloomberg) — Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. can move forward with integrating Juniper Networks Inc., a federal judge said Thursday, while a group of states objected to the agreement the companies reached with the Justice Department because of antitrust concerns about the deal.
U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts in San Jose, California, ruled from the bench after hearing arguments in court and said he would issue his decision in writing later.
He said there is no evidence yet to show that an order is needed here. Pitts said there would be “irreparable harm to competition” if HPE continues to integrate the deal. “There is no such threat”
The deal was completed last summer, and HPE’s attorney, Samuel G. Liversidge, said they were “making quite a bit of progress” on integration.
The agreement between HPE and the Justice Department in June sparked controversy amid allegations that Trump administration officials agreed to the deal after a process that involved lobbying by people close to the president and overruled decisions made by the antitrust division.
The agency sued HPE to block the deal in January 2024, the first antitrust lawsuit filed by the new Trump administration. Days before the case was set to go to trial, the Justice Department announced a deal that allowed the deal to be completed with only a minor divestiture of one of HPE’s businesses, known as Instant On, and a commitment to license certain Juniper technology.
Weeks later, top antitrust officials who opposed the deal were fired; one of them openly claimed that the HPE settlement agreement “perverted justice.” A group of states with Democratic attorneys general then tried to intervene in the case to challenge the decision using an antitrust investigation that requires judges to consider whether the terms are in the public interest.
In court documents, the states asked Pitts to issue an order stopping HPE from integrating Juniper’s Mist software into HPE’s Aruba product. The companies have publicly stated that they expect to release updated integrations for these products in late 2026.
When “consumers start locking in on new integrated products,” the merger becomes more difficult to unravel and “they lose the advantage of choice,” said Anthony Mariano, an attorney with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office.
But Pitts raised questions about the scope of the states’ request, saying he was concerned that states were pushing for “unformed relief” rather than a “narrow” focus on the enterprise Wi-Fi market, which has been the source of antitrust concerns. If the deal is later paused or canceled, it’s unclear whether HPE’s customers or HPE itself would bear the financial burden, Pitts said.
Liversidge also argued that the states had not presented enough evidence to warrant pausing the deal.
“There needs to be evidence,” he said. “This is completely missing” here.
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