BRUSSELS - EU antitrust regulators have paused their investigation into Broadcom's $61 billion bid for cloud computing company VMware while waiting for the U.S. chipmaker to provide requested data, the European Commission said on Friday.

The European Union competition watchdog said it stopped the clock on its investigation on Jan. 31, effective Jan. 24.

"This procedure in merger investigations is activated if the parties fail to provide, in a timely fashion, an important piece of information that the Commission has requested from them," a Commission spokesperson said.

"Once the missing information is supplied by the parties, the clock is re-started and the deadline for the Commission's decision is then adjusted accordingly."

Broadcom's move to diversify into enterprise software comes as regulators worldwide ramp up scrutiny of deals by Big Tech.

  - Reuters