Microsoft is on its way to making significant progress in its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. As some reports indicate that the deal may obtain approval from the UK Competition and Markets Authority this week.
This acquisition has long been under investigation by regulatory authorities, but the process appears to have finally reached the finish line. One of the biggest potential pitfalls that it could have faced was if the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) dealt with it as if it would affect the competition market in the Kingdom, but this did not happen, according to the latest report published by the authority.
According to a newspaper report Financial Times Today, Monday, CMA will announce its final position on Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard next Wednesday, April 26, and it is expected that this deal will be approved.
It is noteworthy that the UK Competition and Markets Authority was initially highly exposed to the completion of this deal. Where the argument was that it would harm the competition market, especially with the PlayStation brand, which would be in the position of the weakest link. However, less than a month ago from now, the Authority changed its position on the deal, which it now believes will not harm the local competition market, after obtaining compelling evidence clarifying the matter.
We do not know the reason for the sudden change in CMA’s position on the deal, as well as the position of Sony, which is trying hard to thwart it. But if it is approved, Microsoft will have bypassed the biggest hurdle that could cause the deal to fail completely.
Could the reason for agreeing to complete the deal be because of obtaining sufficient guarantees that the Call of Duty game will not be removed from the PlayStation platforms and will continue to be released on Sony platforms without restriction or condition? Perhaps this is what Microsoft confirmed for a long time, but it seems that this time there were broader guarantees to ensure that Microsoft did not tamper with the terms of the deal.
