Broadcom’s $5.9 billion purchase of Brocade got pushed back, once again. This time the delay is due to a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Brocade and Broadcom have agreed to allow CFIUS to review the transaction for an additional 45 days.

Under the original terms of the deal, the parties could walk away if the transaction hasn’t closed by November 1. But they’ve agreed to extend their terms to allow for the additional CFIUS review. Brocade and Broadcom now anticipate the acquisition to be completed by November 30, subject to clearance from CFIUS.

The additional CFIUS review could stem from national security concerns related to investments by Chinese companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. Broadcom is domiciled in Singapore and headquartered in San Jose, California.

In July, the deal got pushed back because the Federal Trade Commission wanted additional time to study possible “anticompetitive effects.” The FTC was concerned that once Broadcom owned Brocade’s fibre channel switches, it would essentially have a monopoly on the market that provides the ASICS for those types of switches.

In August, the FTC approved the “Final Order Preserving Competition in Worldwide Market for Fibre Channel Switches” in that matter.

In a statement today, Brocade CEO Lloyd Carney, said, "We are actively engaged with CFIUS and remain committed to Broadcom's proposed acquisition of Brocade. We continue to work diligently and cooperatively with Broadcom to close the transaction as soon as possible in a challenging and dynamic policy and regulatory environment."

Parallel with all of this, Extreme Networks has been anticipating its purchase of the Brocade networking assets for $55 million once the Broadcom-Brocade deal closes. Extreme has already been involving Brocade salespeople in its business. During its fourth quarter 2017 earnings conference call, Extreme’s President and CEO Ed Meyercord said, “Three weeks ago we held our sales kickoff meeting for fiscal ’18. We had our global sales organization including Avaya and Brocade teams — close to a 1,000 strong.”

Moving the ball forward, Extreme and Brocade today announced that they’re not waiting for the Broadcom deal any longer. Brocade is going to directly divest its data center switching, routing, and analytics business to Extreme. According to Extreme, the new deal is “substantially the same terms as the previously announced agreement.” This deal is expected to close within 30 days.

"Given all of the work that has gone into our business integration planning and our proposed product roadmap, Extreme is now poised to bring this deal over the finish line," said Meyercord.