Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard (ATVI) was expected to close this past July after District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley denied the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s request for a preliminary injunction after five long days in court.The UK’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) had other plans though, continuing to block the deal in late Summer, but reopening negotiations on proposed remedies. Microsoft came back with a restructured deal that would see Activision sell their cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to third-party publisher Ubisoft, prior to Microsoft acquiring ATVI. While most global governing bodies and fellow gaming publishers (outside of Sony/PlayStation) saw this as an unnecessary hold out from the UK, this new remedy included in the restructured deal has at least preliminarily quelled the CMA’s concerns of MSFT becoming a monopoly in the cloud gaming space years down the road.
In a press release this past week, the CMA went on to state, “The CMA considers that the restructured deal makes important changes that substantially address the concerns it set out in relation to the original transaction earlier this year and opens the door to the deal being cleared.” The CMA has now opened the door to gain third-party feedback (which has been heavily in Microsoft’s favor the last two times) on the newly proposed remedies through October 6th. A final decision from the UK’s CMA is expected prior to Microsoft and Activision’s renegotiated merger deadline of October 18th.
Reactions to the decision:
Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick
Microsoft’s President Brad Smith
Image from: Xbox/CMA
