The U.S. Department of Justice has given its approval to the Nokia's deal to buy French rival company Alcatel-Lucent, a joint statement by the two companies said on June 17.
"Early termination of the U.S. antitrust waiting period takes us one important step closer to the closing of the pending transaction," they added in the statement.
The transaction is announced in April is yet to be approved by Nokia shareholders. The deal is expected to be finalised in the first half of 2016.
The Finnish company said the all-share transaction will be on the basis of 0.55 of a new Nokia share for every share of Alcatel-Lucent. The share offer values the French concern at 15.6 billion euros ($16.6 billion US).
In April, Nokia had announced that Alcatel-Lucent shareholders would own 33.5 per cent of the fully diluted share capital of the combined company, with Nokia shareholders owning 66.5 per cent.
Nokia has recently made a turnaround since its 5.4 billion-euro sale of the loss-making handset business to Microsoft a year ago, with three remaining sectors: networks, HERE mapping services and technologies and patents.
Nokia also said that it had "initiated a review of strategic options, including a potential divestment, for its HERE business." It gave no details.
Alcatel-Lucent, which has undergone repeated rounds of restructuring since the 2006 merger of France's Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent Technologies, is laying off more than 10,000 workers and last year made a net loss of 118 million euros.
