Sprint竞购大战华为无辜中枪

    软银发言人仓野光弘表示，作为中间人的美国海外投资委员会（Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States，CFIUS）现在已经完成了对国家安全风险的评估，疑虑似乎已经打消。他说：“在美国国防部、司法部（包括联邦调查局）、国土安全部等的协作调查下，我们已经获得了许可……这些机构都表示满意，认为一切涉及国家安全的问题都已经得到了彻底的妥善处理。”

    至于外资拥有美国通讯公司引起的各种对于国家安全问题的担忧，分析家指出，美国四大电信公司中已经有两家不再属于美国所有。【威瑞森无线公司（Verizon Wireless，VZ）部分所有权归于英国公司沃达丰（Vodafone），Metro也由德国公司德国电信（Deutsche Telekom）所有。】因此斯普林特大部分股份由日本软银所有并没有开创任何先例。一位参与软银并购的匿名人士表示：“这只是意味着美国的亲密盟友——日本、英国和德国——都将与美国市场的电信领域息息相关。”

    软银期望在2013年7月初获得余下管理部门的许可，从而实现在2008年公司衰退之后对美国的最大一笔投资。如果这次并购成功，将会是日本在本土之外进行的最大一次跨国交易。

    软银承诺不使用任何中国技术，并与华为在美国的网络划清界限，此举似乎减轻了安全监管部门的疑虑。全球安全组织Globalsecurity.org的亚洲安全分析家约翰•派克认为这样做也无妨。他表示，中国制造的设备在国外网络中运行，会造成真正的危险。“如果中国政府不利用本国公司秘密渗入美国的信息基础设施，那就太傻了。跟其他类似案例一样，问题在于这种渗透非常隐秘，难以找到确凿证据。因此完全避免这类冒险就要简单得多。”（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    Now the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has completed its own review of the risks from a national security standpoint according to Softbank spokesman Mitsuhiro Kurano, and the misgivings seem further Ripperesque. "We have received approval ... including participation by Department of Defense, the Department of Justice (including the FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security. All these agencies are fully satisfied that there are no national security issues that have not been fully and completely addressed," he says.

    As for the foreign ownership of U.S. telecommunications companies raising any sort of national security concern, analysts point out that two of the four largest U.S. telecoms are already owned by non-U.S. entities. (Verizon Wireless (VZ) is partially owned by Vodafone, a U.K. company, and Metro is owned by Deutsche Telekom, a German firm.) Having Sprint majority-controlled by the Japanese Softbank breaks no new ground. "It's just that all of the U.S.'s closest allies, Japan, the U.K., and Germany, will have a stake in this part of the U.S. market," says a source working on the Softbank merger who did not wish to be named.

    Softbank now looks on track to obtain the remaining regulatory approvals for an expected close in early July 2013, making it the largest foreign investment in the U.S. since the recession of 2008 according to the firm. Should the merger go ahead it will be the largest cross-border deal out of Japan in history.

    The promise by Softbank to relieve itself of any China-made technology and clear out the Huawei networks in the U.S. seems to have assuaged the security regulators. Which is just as well, says Asian security analyst at globalsecurity.org, John Pike. He says there is a real danger posed by any equipment made in China operating on foreign networks. "The Chinese government would be stupid to neglect using Chinese companies to gain clandestine access to U.S. information infrastructure," he says. "The concern here, as with other such cases, is that the intrusion would be too subtle to reliably catch, so it is much easier just to avoid the hazard altogether."