CMA Blocks Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard

The Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked what would have been the biggest deal within the gaming business so far on April 26, 2023. This choice brings consideration to varied important developments, together with:

• In dynamic markets, regulators are focusing in on whether or not a deal harms or might hurt future competitors (i.e., innovation based mostly on predications elevating important uncertainties). The CMA speculated that the deal would “alter the way forward for the fast-growing cloud gaming market” and most popular to take care of the established order with the block.
• Regulators are focusing increasingly more on non-horizontal relationships and provide chain points, notably if one social gathering is vertically built-in. Whereas previously, considerations might typically be remedied by way of behavioral commitments, increasingly more offers with a vertical element at the moment are being outright prohibited.
• Whereas the business expects the European Fee (Fee) to simply accept the behavioral treatment (license package deal) supplied by Microsoft, this case reveals as soon as once more that the CMA and the Fee can attain completely different conclusions when reviewing the identical transaction.

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Transaction Lawyer Nils Inventory contributed to this text.