The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has suggested a “new merger investigation” into Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is not out of the question, following Microsoft’s court case win against the US Federal Trade Commission yesterday.
The CMA has remained an outlier in Microsoft’s ongoing bid to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, being one of the only bodies to oppose the deal.
In April, the CMA cited concerns over the deal’s proposed impact on the cloud gaming sector as its reason for blocking the acquisition, stating Microsoft’s ownership of Activision Blizzard risked “stifling competition in this growing market”.
Following the court’s decision in the US yesterday, Microsoft and Activision agreed with the CMA that a “stay of litigation” would be in the “public interest”. The relevent parties then made a “joint submission to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to this effect”.