Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced legislation Monday that would ban “all mergers and acquisitions by companies with market capitalization exceeding $100 billion.” The Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act would allow the FTC to designate “dominant digital firms” in prohibiting such companies from buying potential competitors. It would alter the Sherman and Clayton acts to “make clear that direct evidence of anticompetitive conduct is sufficient to support an antitrust claim.”

Microsoft expects its all-cash deal to buy Nuance Communications for $19.7 billion to close by year's end, said Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood on an investor webinar Monday. “Coming out the pandemic, we’re experiencing digital transformation on a scale never seen before,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “This is driving lasting structural change and accelerating digital transformation driven by industry-specific cloud solutions.” Nuance is building “the next-generation omnichannel customer engagement cloud service at a time when every business is reimagining how it interacts with customers,” said Nadella. He and other Microsoft and Nuance executives took no questions.

Toshiba’s board “will conduct careful review” of the buyout offer it received Tuesday from private equity firm CVC Capital Partners “when it is further clarified in the future,” commented Chairman Osamu Nagayama Friday. “This initial proposal by CVC was completely unsolicited and not initiated by Toshiba by all means,” he said. Complexities abound in the offer, including the need to get regulatory approvals in all “relevant jurisdictions,” he said. “The proposed transaction is not contemplated to be financed by CVC alone,” but through funding from “certain co-investors and financial institutions.” Such a financing process "would require a substantial amount of time and involve complexity for consideration,” said Nagayama. CVC didn’t comment.

Cloud-based services provider Deluxe Media bought Sony New Media Solutions and will integrate its team and platform into the company, it said Friday. Deluxe customers will have access to a suite of services and technologies covering all aspects of media distribution and localization from streaming and broadcast platforms to physical media and theatrical distribution, it said. The industry will benefit through improved workflows and better integrated supply chain solutions, said John Studdert, Sony Electronics vice president-media solutions. Sony Pictures will be able to “work even closer with a key supplier,” said Senior Vice President-M&A and Corporate Development Carrie Ferman.

Roku added to The Roku Channel library, announcing Friday it bought This Old House business TOH Intermediate Holdings, including global distribution rights to This Old House and Ask This Old House TV programs, show libraries, all digital assets and the TV production studio. This Old House and Ask This Old House were the two top-rated home improvement programs in the U.S. last year, it said, citing Nielsen. The shows' past seasons have been available for free on The Roku Channel. Current seasons are available on the channel as on-demand episodes after they air on local PBS stations, it said. The TOH executive team, including CEO Dan Suratt, and the team behind the shows will continue creating content, Roku said.

Qualcomm Technologies completed its buy of CPU and tech design company Nuvia for $1.4 billion, said Qualcomm Tuesday. Qualcomm expects to integrate next-generation CPUs “across a wide portfolio of products,” including smartphones, laptops and digital cockpits, plus advanced driver assistance systems, extended reality and infrastructure networking solutions, it said.

PayPal agreed to buy Curv, the Israeli cloud-based digital infrastructure company, saying the transaction will “accelerate and expand its initiatives” in "cryptocurrencies and digital assets.” PayPal said Monday it expects the deal to close in the first half of 2021. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Roku agreed to buy Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising unit, including its video automatic content recognition (ACR) and dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technologies, they said Monday: This will accelerate Roku’s launch of an end-to-end DAI solution with TV programmers. Their new partnership will integrate free Nielsen ad and content measurement products into Roku’s platform to advance the Nielsen One cross-media measurement solution, they said. Combining technologies will allow Roku to deliver the benefits of TV streaming advertising to traditional TV, said Louqman Parampath, Roku vice president-product management. The traditional TV ad market is worth tens of billions of dollars, he noted. Measurement of ads and content on Roku devices will “accelerate the path to a single, deduplicated cross-media currency,” said Scott Brown, Nielsen general manager-audience measurement. Bringing dynamic ad insertion to all forms of TV will help monetize the addressable market by “measuring smart TV as a currency, which Nielsen can do at scale,” he said. The transaction is expected to close in Q2. Roku expects 100 employees from Nielsen’s AVA business to join the company.

Cable One's financial, technical and managerial resources would enhance Hargray's ability to compete in the telecom market, the cable operator said in an FCC International Bureau application Friday seeking OK of its $2.2 billion purchase of the telecom services provider (see 2102160014). Cable One said the deal will be seamless to customers, with existing Hargray customers still getting service under the Hargray name and all billing and correspondence reflecting the Hargray name for the immediate future.

S&P Global placed DirecTV on “negative CreditWatch” on doubts that the pay-TV company will have a viable business “on a stand-alone basis” after AT&T’s spinoff to TPG is complete later this year (see 2102260022), said the ratings service Monday. “We view the pay-TV distribution segment as having weak business risk characteristics given the secular industry pressures and intense competition from incumbent cable operators,” plus Dish Network and streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. Ongoing financial support from AT&T is “uncertain,” it said.