Affected by the continuous strengthening of regulatory efforts by the European Union, Amazon's plan to acquire iRobot was forced to terminate after being proposed for a year and a half. On January 29th local time, Amazon announced the termination of its $1.4 billion acquisition plan for iRobot, a sweeping robot manufacturer. The two companies wrote in a joint statement that the acquisition plan "failed to obtain EU regulatory approval, preventing Amazon and iRobot from moving forward together.".