The U.K.’s competition regulator says Microsoft’s restructured takeover proposal of Activision Blizzard, submitted in August, « opens the door to the deal being cleared. »
The U.K.’s competition regulator on Friday said Microsoft’s restructured takeover proposal of Activision Blizzard, submitted in August, « opens the door to the deal being cleared. »
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority had blocked the Redmond tech giant’s initial $69 billion transaction, first put forward in January 2022, on concerns that it would restrict competition in the nascent cloud gaming sector.
Microsoft then proposed a new takeover deal, offering to divest cloud rights for existing Activision PC and console games — and for new games published by Activision over the next 15 years — to French game publisher Ubisoft Entertainment before the sale is completed.
« While the CMA has identified limited residual concerns with the new deal, Microsoft has put forward remedies which the CMA has provisionally concluded should address these issues, » the regulator said Friday, adding it still has « limited residual concerns that certain provisions in the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft could be circumvented, terminated, or not enforced.
