Microsoft and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority have been provisionally granted two further months to reach a new agreement over Activision Blizzard following a joint request to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
The CMA officially blocked Microsoft’s proposed $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard back in April, highlighting concerns relating to the fledgling cloud gaming sector and arguing the deal would risk “stifling competition in this growing market”.
However, following the US Federal Trade Commission’s failure to secure a temporarily halt on the deal in court last week, the CMA indicated it would be open to a “new merger investigation” if Microsoft was willing to restructure its Activision Blizzard deal.
In order to facilitate those renewed discussions, Microsoft, Activision, and the CMA (which has now extended the deadline for its final decision from July 18th to August 29th) all agreed a two-month “stay of litigation” would be in the public interest, and made a joint submission to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to that effect. The CAT was originally due to hear Microsoft’s appeal against the CMA’s decision on 28th July.