Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

[anonpuffs]

They just got done losing the Meta/Within Unlimited case. Except instead of officially "losing" it they withdrew the case to go back to arbitration for the sole purpose of allowing the deal to go through. Its the most recent closed case here.

The difference in that case is that the FTC was out of its mind and was probably just trying to fuck with meta as it made no sense why they would argue against such a tiny acquisition. Activision is much different as it's a huge corporation that can have lasting impact across the entire industry.

 

[nongkris]

This charade that the FTC doesn't know the law or what its doing originated from xbots and needs to end.

Meta Won Approval to Buy a Virtual Reality App, But FTC Laid Groundwork to Halt Big Tech’s Next Deal

The ruling is a blow to the agency but may further the commission's overall enforcement agenda.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

"Two important precedents happened with the Meta/Within case:

The court accepted FTC's definition of a small nasceant market, a huge implication on future cases as much of prior anti-trust was based on what market definition is.

The court accepted FTC's theory of buying leading firms in nasceant markets is anti-competitive

Such a theory has not been accepted by courts in over 40 years. Really shows how the tides are slowly changing on the judiciary level. On the Senate/Congress level things are changing very fast and, well on the regulator level, the FTC has already completely changed."

 

[adamsapple]

Whelp. EU seems to be on-board.

 

[Deleted member 417]

Care to post the full article?

 

[Swift_Star]

Whelp. EU seems to be on-board.

As Idas have already said: The CMA will be the one to block the deal.

 

[Swift_Star]

Care to post the full article?

Exclusive: Microsoft set to win EU nod on Activision with licensing offer, sources say

Microsoft Corp is expected to secure EU antitrust approval for its $69 billion acquisition of Activision with its offer of licensing deals to rivals, three people familiar with the matter said, helping it to clear a major hurdle.

www.reuters.com

BRUSSELS, March 2 (Reuters) - Microsoft's (MSFT.O) readiness to offer licensing deals to rivals is likely to address EU antitrust concerns over its $69 billion acquisition of Activision (ATVI.O) without the need for asset sales, three people familiar with the matter said.

The European Commission is not expected to demand that Microsoft sell assets to win its approval, the people said.

Microsoft President Brad Smith last month said the U.S. software giant was ready to offer rivals licensing deals to address antitrust concerns but it would not sell Activision's lucrative "Call of Duty" franchise.



The EU competition enforcer declined to comment.

Microsoft said it was "committed to offering effective  and  easily  enforceable solutions  that address the European Commission's concerns".

"Our commitment to grant long term 100% equal access to  Call of Duty to Sony, Steam,  NVIDIA and others  preserves the deal's benefits to gamers and developers and increases competition in the market," a spokesperson said.

It's a bunch of nothing, lmao.

 

[Darth Vader]

Welp, I know how to copy-paste a link

Exclusive: Microsoft set to win EU nod on Activision with licensing offer, sources say

Microsoft Corp is expected to secure EU antitrust approval for its $69 billion acquisition of Activision with its offer of licensing deals to rivals, three people familiar with the matter said, helping it to clear a major hurdle.

www.reuters.com

BRUSSELS, March 2 (Reuters) - Microsoft's (MSFT.O) readiness to offer licensing deals to rivals is likely to address EU antitrust concerns over its $69 billion acquisition of Activision (ATVI.O) without the need for asset sales, three people familiar with the matter said.

The European Commission is not expected to demand that Microsoft sell assets to win its approval, the people said.

Microsoft President Brad Smith last month said the U.S. software giant was ready to offer rivals licensing deals to address antitrust concerns but it would not sell Activision's lucrative "Call of Duty" franchise.

The EU competition enforcer declined to comment.

Microsoft said it was "committed to offering effective  and  easily  enforceable solutions  that address the European Commission's concerns".

"Our commitment to grant long term 100% equal access to  Call of Duty to Sony, Steam,  NVIDIA and others  preserves the deal's benefits to gamers and developers and increases competition in the market," a spokesperson said.

That's the whole article. I wouldn't be celebrating based on this.

Damn @Swift_Star beat me to it

 

[nongkris]

EU is so gullible, and I'd never thought I'd see the day where American and UK anti trust was tougher on corporate mergers than them. Dissapointing if this turns out to be the case.

 

[Gediminas]

Welp, I know how to copy-paste a link

Exclusive: Microsoft set to win EU nod on Activision with licensing offer, sources say

Microsoft Corp is expected to secure EU antitrust approval for its $69 billion acquisition of Activision with its offer of licensing deals to rivals, three people familiar with the matter said, helping it to clear a major hurdle.

www.reuters.com

That's the whole article. I wouldn't be celebrating based on this.

Damn @Swift_Star beat me to it

So, it is nothing burger by scummerland citizen?
I am shocked.

 

[laynelane]

Welp, I know how to copy-paste a link

Exclusive: Microsoft set to win EU nod on Activision with licensing offer, sources say

Microsoft Corp is expected to secure EU antitrust approval for its $69 billion acquisition of Activision with its offer of licensing deals to rivals, three people familiar with the matter said, helping it to clear a major hurdle.

www.reuters.com

That's the whole article. I wouldn't be celebrating based on this.

Damn @Swift_Star beat me to it

Agreed. "Sources" and "insiders" are not reliable indicators of which way the EU will go. Then again, why wait for an actual decision when you can make a clickbait article now.

 

[Swift_Star]

So, it is nothing burger by scummerland citizen?
I am shocked.

They're fishing for clicks.
They know how thirst people are for news.

 

[Darth Vader]

I compiled a list of all mergers approved or prohibited between January 2022 and today, by the EC:

• Mergers: Commission prohibits proposed acquisition of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering by Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings
• Mergers: Commission approves acquisition of Ferro by Prince, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission clears acquisition of Kustomer by Meta (formerly Facebook), subject to conditions
  • The above has requirements about public API access and Core API parity
• Mergers: Commission clears the merger of Cargotec with Konecranes, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission approves acquisition of MGM by Amazon
• Mergers: Commission approves Parker's acquisition of Meggitt, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission approves Ali Group's acquisition of Welbilt, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission approves Bouygues' acquisition of Equans, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission approves D'Ieteren's acquisition of PHE, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission prohibits acquisition of GRAIL by Illumina
• Mergers: Commission approves KPS acquisition of Real Alloy Europe, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission approves Philip Morris International's acquisition of Swedish Match, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission approves SalMar's acquisition of NTS, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions
• Mergers: Commission clears the acquisition of MBCC by Sika, subject to conditions
  • The above has divestiture as one of the conditions

So, out of 14 deals

• 2 prohibited
• 1 approved unconditionally
• 11 approved with conditions, 1 being exclusively behavioural and the other 10 with divestiture.

Thinking there will be no behavioural or structural remedies in the EU is just wishful thinking at this stage. Even Kustomer, a customer service platform, being acquired by Facebook, which is technically not one, had behavioural remedies added to it. It's beyond me how someone could consider that the EU will have no concerns whatsoever with an acquisition that is valued at 70% of the main competitor's value as a company.

 

[Dabaus]

I always said, sony needs to stop wasting time trying to kill this and make deals of their own. Circle the Wagons around Square and capcom at the very least whatever that looks like.

 

[Swift_Star]

I always said, sony needs to stop wasting time trying to kill this and make deals of their own. Circle the Wagons around Square and capcom at the very least whatever that looks like.

Best case scenario is this deal failing and no one else doing this kind of shit. This also why it's so important the deal falls through. We don't need this kind of consolidation.

 

[Bryank75]

EU is so gullible, and I'd never thought I'd see the day where American and UK anti trust was tougher on corporate mergers than them. Dissapointing if this turns out to be the case.

That Vesteger has always been money before principles..... the minute Apple put a data-center in Denmark, she let them go on the Irish tax situation more or less.

Europe is really not trustworthy, too much lobbying now.... Brussels is worse than Washington.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Exclusive: Microsoft set to win EU nod on Activision with licensing offer, sources say

Microsoft Corp is expected to secure EU antitrust approval for its $69 billion acquisition of Activision with its offer of licensing deals to rivals, three people familiar with the matter said, helping it to clear a major hurdle.

www.reuters.com

It's a bunch of nothing, lmao.

I am amazed at how insanely gullible the EU is, even after having MS spit in their faces on the Bethesda deal.

 

[Bryank75]

I am amazed at how insanely gullible the EU is, even after having MS spit in their faces on the Bethesda deal.

It's not gullibility.... they probably got investments or something that benefits europe on the back of it.... it's always their MO.

 

[nongkris]

I better see some harsh behavioral remedies from the EU that all but make COD a multi platform game for X amount of years if they don't want divestiture. Or else what was the whole dog and pony show for if they approve it with no concessions. Still good luck to MS trying to get through the FTC and CMA. Both want nothing less than a seperate activision or blocked deal.

 

[FatKaz]

I better see some harsh behavioral remedies from the EU that all but make COD a multi platform game for X amount of years if they don't want divestiture. Or else what was the whole dog and pony show for if they approve it with no concessions. Still good luck to MS trying to get through the FTC and CMA. Both want nothing less than a seperate activision or blocked deal.

EU will 100% ask for concessions, will depend how harsh it is. What will really surprise me is how much control Microsoft will have control of the price of the license of putting cod on competitor cloud platforms. If the EU aren't complete idiots they will have to find a way of controlling that.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Are people actually taking that article seriously? Who are the "sources" in there? Which way do they lean? Are they representing any given side in the proceedings? If so which one?

The fact is we've only seen Microsoft representatives out here talking about the deal for the past couple of weeks, so I'm inclined to believe the "sources" in that article are just more Microsoft people applying their own perspective on the deal proceedings. Unless we get actual word from the EC, ALWAYS take these kinds of articles with big Pink Himalayan grains of salt.