Activision Blizzard’s Acquisition of Microsoft: The EU Stays Alright

The final stage of the Activision Blizzard acquisition process

For a long time, the CMA was the only authority in the world to lodge a formal objection to the Activision Blizzard takeover. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also wanted to block the deal, but failed in court. The FTC has filed an appeal, but experts say its chances of success are close to zero.

In Great Britain, Microsoft responded to the original concerns with a revised deal. Specifically, Redmond proposed to the CMA to sell its disputed game streaming business to Ubisoft, which had already declared (in principle) that this solution was satisfactory and that the original concerns could be addressed.

The European Union has also considered the British New Deal, according to a report by Bloomberg The EU Commission sees no reason to reopen the case or make changes to the previous version from Brussels.

The European Union stands by the release

According to the EU or people familiar with the matter, it has been concluded that the changes aimed at appeasing British regulators do not raise any new competition law issues – and therefore do not require starting a new approval process.

Officially, the European Commission was unwilling to comment to Bloomberg; Rather, it said only that it was “considering or has studied the potential effects” of Microsoft’s reviews. However, they did not want to comment specifically on the Business Portal report.

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