
Coming as no surprise, the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday said it will require Britain’s Smiths Group to divest the explosives trace detection (ETD) of Morpho Detection as a condition for approving Smiths pending $710 million acquisition of Morpho from France’s Safran Group.The Justice Department’s condition for the deal follows one earlier this year by European regulators, who also are requiring Smiths to divest Morpho’s trace business to allow the acquisition to proceed.Regulators want to ensure robust competition in the…