ENGLAND — The reworked Activision Blizzard acquisition plan Microsoft made in August “opens the door to the merger being cleared,” according to the U.K.’s competition watchdog on Friday.
The initial $69 billion agreement between Microsoft and the Redmond tech behemoth was initially rejected by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority because of worries that it would limit competition in the burgeoning cloud gaming industry.
Then, Microsoft made a fresh buyout bid, pledging to sell French game producer Ubisoft Entertainment the cloud rights to all current Activision PC and console titles as well as any new games created by Activision for the next 15 years, prior to the sale’s closing.
The CMA said in a statement on Friday that it has “limited residual concerns” about the new agreement, “but Microsoft has put forward remedies that the CMA has provisionally concluded should address these issues.” The CMA also said it has “limited residual concerns” that “certain provisions in the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft could be circumvented, terminated, or not enforced.”
Source (CNBC)
