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.
