{"id":72173,"date":"2023-10-13T07:55:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T11:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/markets\/microsoft-activision-finally-gets-u-k-approval-but-comes-with-this-warning\/"},"modified":"2023-10-13T07:55:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T11:55:50","slug":"microsoft-activision-finally-gets-u-k-approval-but-comes-with-this-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=72173","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft-Activision Finally Gets U.K Approval. But Comes With This Warning."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\n Microsoft\u2019s<\/span>
\n $75 billion acquisition of
\n Activision Blizzard
\n is on the path to closing after U.K. regulators cleared the deal. It\u2019s a relief for the tech giant but came with an admonishment which suggests British antitrust authorities are joining their American counterparts in an aggressive stance toward Big Tech.<\/p>\n

The U.K.\u2019s Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, said Friday that its concerns over the threat to competition posed by the deal were resolved by
\n Microsoft\u2019s<\/span>
\n (ticker: MSFT) transfer of cloud-streaming rights for
\n Activision\u2019s<\/span>
\n (ATVI) videogames to a rival company.<\/p>\n

\n

However, the approval came with a caution for Microsoft and its Big Tech peers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesses and their advisors should be in no doubt that the tactics employed by Microsoft are no way to engage with the CMA.\u202fMicrosoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn\u2019t work,\u201d said Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, in a statement.<\/p>\n

The rebuke looks like the British regulator is just getting started taking on big technology companies. The CMA is claiming a win, despite having backed down from its\u00a0initial stance\u00a0against the deal, which led to Microsoft suggesting it would discourage innovation and investment in the U.K. However Microsoft ended up backing down too. This deal could be a sign of things to come. The CMA clearly has no problem being the only holdout against megadeals, having previously deferred to European Union regulators on merger controls.<\/p>\n

Microsoft didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement from Barron\u2019s<\/em> early on Friday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe question that is left hanging\u2026 is whether this case shows a merger oversight system in the U.K. that is too dogmatic in dealing with what is a forward looking competitive assessment (especially in the case of \u2018Big Tech\u2019), or one which can be sufficiently flexible when required,\u201d said Alex Haffner, competition partner at U.K. law firm Fladgate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Microsoft and
\n Amazon\u2019s<\/span>
\n (AMZN) dominance of the cloud-computing market is currently under investigation in the U.K.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s Activision acquisition can now be closed despite continuing opposition from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The FTC said last month that it plans to restart an in-house trial against Microsoft over the acquisition but it doesn\u2019t currently have the power to block the deal, after federal judges rejected its attempts to obtain a court order to do so. <\/p>\n

Microsoft President Brad Smith said on social-media network X. formerly Twitter, that the company had crossed the \u201cfinal hurdle\u201d to closing the acquisition. Microsoft and Activision had set an extended deadline of Oct. 18 for completing the merger.<\/p>\n

Microsoft shares were up 0.1% in premarket trading on Monday. Activision shares were unchanged having closed at $94.54 in after hours trading the previous day, just below the acquisition price of $95 a share. <\/p>\n

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft\u2019s $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard is on the path to closing after U.K. regulators cleared the deal. It\u2019s a relief for the tech giant but came with an admonishment which suggests British antitrust authorities are joining their American counterparts in an aggressive stance toward Big Tech. The U.K.\u2019s Competition and Markets Authority, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-72173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markets","tag-featured","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"yoast_head":"\nMicrosoft-Activision Finally Gets U.K Approval. 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