Alex Haffner, specialist competition lawyer and partner at UK law firm Fladgate, comments following this morning’s announcement by the CMA which paves the way for the Microsoft/Activision deal to be given the regulatory green light. Alex’s comment can be seen below:
“Assuming that is the end result, both sides will (publicly at least) feel that they have achieved the desired outcome: Microsoft by removing the last major impediment to completing this important deal and the CMA in securing sufficient concessions from the parties to demonstrate that its concerns about any negative impact on competition and consumers have been met. Nonetheless, once the dust settles on what has been a tumultuous investigatory process there will be important lessons to be learned by all concerned and the ongoing spotlight on the way that competition regulators such as the CMA deal with “Big Tech” will continue to attract significant attention.”
Microsoft had already set out, in the terms of a “new deal” put before the regulator that it was willing to sell important rights to sell cloud gaming versions of Activision gaming titles to Ubisoft. In its announcement today, the CMA has effectively endorsed that concession as being sufficient to mitigate the competition concerns which the CMA had previously raised as being an insurmountable barrier to the transaction getting UK regulatory clearance (under the terms of the original deal put forward by the merging parties). In practical terms, it has given interested parties two weeks to comment on the remedies proposed before reaching a final decision, but it now seems inevitable that the deal with receive full and final clearance.”
