The Antitrust Division said October 8 it had closed its investigation into Arrive AS’s acquisition of Passport Labs, the Charlotte-based parking payments and compliance platform. Arrive, the Norwegian mobility platform backed by Vitruvian Partners, Verdane and Searchlight Capital Partners, announced its intent to acquire Passport on March 4, and on October 1 said the acquisition had completed, with the two companies combining payment systems, parking compliance and real-time curb management.
The Division issued second requests to both companies and ran a five-month review of mobile parking payments, the product municipalities use to let citizens pay for on-street parking by phone. It concluded a substantial reduction in competition was unlikely, pointing to smaller vendors outside Arrive, Passport and PayByPhone winning recent municipal contracts, and to Passport declining to bid on or losing some recent notable contracts. A timing agreement that prioritized evidence on parking-payment competition let the Division reach its conclusion faster.
The unusual sequencing, deal closing announced October 1 and the probe closed October 8, leaves the transaction fully consummated. Passport’s platform is used by more than 800 North American cities and parking operators, and the combined company is positioning the unified stack as curb-management infrastructure for autonomous-vehicle deployment.