By Kelvin Chan, Business Writer
LONDON (AP) --British competition regulators opened a new investigation Tuesday into Microsoft's revamped bid to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard, representing the last major hurdle to closing one of the biggest deals in tech history.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it has until Oct. 18 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its preliminary investigation into an in-depth review. The companies agreed earlier to extend the transaction's deadline to that same date.
Xbox maker Microsoft has been on a quest to acquire Activision, maker of the popular Call of Duty game franchise since announcing the $69 billion deal in January 2022.
The companies have secured approvals from antitrust authorities covering 40 countries, including the European Union.
The blockbuster deal faced pushback in the United States, but the Federal Trade Commission lost a court fight to stop it, effectively clearing the way for it to proceed.
The purchase is now only held up in Britain, where authorities moved to block it earlier this year over worries about competition being stifled in the emerging cloud gaming market, where players can avoid buying pricey consoles and stream games to their tablets or phones.
Under the restructured deal, Microsoft will sell cloud streaming rights outside of the European Economic Area for all current and new Activision games released over the next 15 years to French game studio Ubisoft Entertainment, Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post. The European Economic Area includes the EU's 27 nations, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
In an unprecedented move, the U.K. watchdog had delayed its final order to block the deal. That allowed it to consider an EU decision to accept Microsoft's pledge to automatically license Activision games to cloud gaming platforms and a licensing deal between Microsoft and rival Sony, maker of the PlayStation console.
The CMA said Tuesday that it found those developments wouldn't have changed its original decision and imposed an order to block the deal. At the same time, it's considering the new Microsoft proposal, which "is substantially different from what was put on the table previously," said Sarah Cardell, CEO of the U.K. watchdog.
"This is not a green light," Cardell said. "We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments."
The regulator's decision to launch a new investigation instead of approving the deal was an unexpected move and raises the prospect of another lengthy review, said Alex Haffner, competition partner at U.K. law firm Fladgate.
"In reality, however, it is hard to believe Microsoft would have taken this new course without a high degree of confidence it will now in due course (finally) get a regulatory green light from the CMA," he said by email.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More