By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) -A group of U.S. states can intervene in a case over Hewlett-Packard Enterprise's $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, which the U.S. Department of Justice has proposed to
settle and let the deal move forward, a judge said during a hearing on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts in San Jose, California said Colorado and other states can weigh in on the deal, but did not decide whether he will probe the circumstances under which it was reached, which the states have called suspicious.
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, the DOJ sued to block the deal, alleging it would stifle competition and lead to only two companies - Cisco Systems and HPE - controlling more than 70% of the U.S. market for networking equipment.
The DOJ agreed to drop its claims in June ahead of a scheduled trial in exchange for HPE agreeing to license some of Juniper's AI technology to competitors and sell off a unit that caters to small and mid-sized businesses.
Colorado and a group of states have called on Pitts to probe the role lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration played in the settlement, and whether the proposal addresses the DOJ's initial concerns about the deal. Democratic lawmakers and some former Department of Justice attorneys have also criticized the settlement.
Last week, the DOJ proposed additional terms requiring that HPE sell its Instant On wireless networking business to a viable competitor and barring HPE from buying it back for ten years.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Nick Zieminski)
