State attorney generals had questioned the legitimacy of the $14 billion deal.
Talk about navigating a crooked path. The judge overseeing the most recent objection to HPE’s $14 billion buy of Juniper Networks approved HPE’s original settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.
“As stated in both HPE’s and DOJ’s filings, the settlement in this case is in the public interest and warranted approval. We are gratified by the judge’s approval of the settlement and are excited about the innovation we’re already unlocking for customers as an integrated organization,” HPE wrote in a statement responding to the judge’s ruling.
“While the states have performed an invaluable public service in bringing to light additional details about the machinations at the DOJ that led to the settlement, they have not shown that entry of the amended proposed final judgment would not be in the public interest,” wrote P. Casey Pitts of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in his 41-page ruling.
In March, a group of US state attorney generals filed a motion that said the settlement was not legitimate and the court should void it and come up with a new one.
A New York Times article in March stated that the case was the most significant courtroom vetting of an antitrust settlement between the government and a technology company in 30 years. “It followed increasing frustration from some states and critics about the administration’s efforts to allow mergers and settle antitrust and consumer protection lawsuits,” the article stated.
The divestitures in the Department of Justice’s approval of Hewlett Packard Enterprise/Juniper Networks were so insignificant they may have been designed to “create the appearance” of a structural fix, Judge Pitts stated at the time.
Originally announced on January 9, 2024, the deal and has undergone public scrutiny ever since, with regulatory reviews in the UK, EU and the US. It was the US that proved to be the final hurdle, with the Justice Department suing to block the deal at first. At the time, the DOJ said reduced competition in the wireless market would be the biggest problem with the proposed buy. In its statement, the agency noted that HPE and Juniper are the second- and third-largest providers, respectively, of enterprise-grade WLAN solutions in the U.S. behind market leader Cisco.
But those issues were ultimately settled in June 2025, and HPE has gone on to integrate Juniper’s networking technology. Most recently, it announced a raft of new products, including HPE Juniper Networking QFX switches aimed at inferencing and scale-up architecture. It also deepened integration of its Juniper Networking data center switching and operations into its Mist AI engine and launched a unified, AI-native SASE platform.
