Microsoft Faces EU Antitrust Warning Over Activision Deal (reuters.com) 12
Microsoft is likely to receive an EU antitrust warning about its $69 billion bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter, that could pose another challenge to completing the deal. From the report: The European Commission is readying a charge sheet known as a statement of objections setting out its concerns about the deal which will be sent to Microsoft in the coming weeks, the people said. The EU antitrust watchdog, which has set an April 11 deadline for its decision on the deal, declined to comment.
He's dead Jim (Score:4, Interesting)
If it isn't painfully clear to all by now this deal will not go ahead. Not only is the FTC against it (which itself is a monumental statement given how few f***s they give about mega companies in America) but basically so is every competition watchdog in every other country. The only one who hasn't realised this is an insurmountable hurdle yet are MS's lawyers who are paid by the hour to not recognise the problem.
Re:He's dead Jim (Score:5, Interesting)
I still think that it will end up going through after concessions are made.
After all, even after the merger, Microsoft will still be a few places behind Sony as far as market share goes.
Also, Microsoft is promising to not make contested game titles exclusive to their platform.
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I still think that it will end up going through after concessions are made.
After all, even after the merger, Microsoft will still be a few places behind Sony as far as market share goes.
Also, Microsoft is promising to not make contested game titles exclusive to their platform.
You forgot the very important "for now." Microsoft is promising to not make contested game titles exclusive to their platform, for now. As soon as the paperwork is all filed properly and the absorbing entity is satisfied, be assured, titles will be exclusive. Barring unwanted attention from government entities. If bribery won't work to silence the critical government bodies, they'll think about remembering the promise they pinky swore about exclusivity. Maybe.
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Microsoft has offered, in writing, a 10 year non-exclusive deal on CoD and possibly other games, as reported by Paul Thurrott, a journalist who covers Microsoft.
If you think about it, Microsoft would be leaving money on the table if they went exclusive with a big game like CoD. Especially since PlayStation has more market share than Xbox, by a good margin.
Microsoft's business model, in the age of cloud computing, is to cast as wide a net as possible and offer services rather than lock people in to particula
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I'm take your bet. This one can go either way so it would be a fun bet, but personally I think the world's regulators are a bit too hostile right now for a merger of this size in an already condensed industry. I'm not sure the concessions made will be sufficient. It will be interesting especially since I suspect that the concessions requested may differ by country. But we'll see.
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It will pass, but the regulators want to seem like they are doing something.
FTC case is the easiest one. They don't have any. Otherwise, they would go to a Federal court, ... and they would lose: https://www.reuters.com/legal/... [reuters.com]
(Basically they are playing delaying tactics, and hoping Microsoft and Activision will give up. Remember, they have set the internal court review to about the deal expiration date. Why? The current commissioner wants to make a name for herself).
And, when you actually read the story
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FTC case is the easiest one.
I agree, but the fact that there's a case at all makes me think that they won't get past other regulators. There are plenty of mergers that fall apart. In the rest of the world regulators actually have teeth like actual lions. That the FTC in this case is meowing rather than just sleeping in the corner like always makes me think those lions may actually bite.
They are actively negotiating. (Something which FTC did not even do). It is a good sign.
It is. We'll see how far they get. There's a lot of different groups that need to be appeased. We'll see how many concessions MS can tolerate before th
Why do we care what EU think of a US company ? (Score:1)
Why should we care what EU think ?
That should be called illegal state sponsored interference and be considered as a national security problem, and if EU is not happy with how MS work, they can ban Microsoft and try to force their citizen to switch to some shitty Apple OS or Linux, see how that work :D
Otherwise.... they could STFU and stop being a fucking pest.
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Well, you do not need to care, but MS does. They do business here in the EU so they are bound by the laws here. Yes, I get that you are not smart enough to understand something as complicated as that.
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You did not understood my comment.
EU is SO dependent on Microsoft, that before they can have ANY saying in how a US business work, EU should start by stopping to use ALL Microsoft product first, AND THEN, and only then, start whining about it.
You don't get to suck a blueberry lollipop and start whining at the fact that it blueberry and the maker should change for your taste; Instead, stop using their product, and then use another brand or flavor, and then make laws to prevent them from doing business in you
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Again, that is not how laws work. I get that you do not know that. Your argument is massively stupid though. Very obviously the laws where you do business apply to that business you do there and it does not matter at all where your head office is. We also have something called "separation of powers" here and that means the people doing antitrust do not have to care at all that the average public administration has supidly made themselves dependent on MS.