The now-famous CMA is continuing its investigation into Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, completing its public opinion survey and moving forward with the case within the organization.
The milestone ended today is actually quite bizarre: the UK competition authority has allowed the public to send emails to its address for a period of time to ask users about possible problems or benefits arising from Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. A procedure that seems unorthodox, but nevertheless obviously falls under the CMA’s investigative methods.
Such an initiative could also have been taken to demonstrate a certain proximity to the public, given that Microsoft itself accused the CMA of being too attentive to Sony’s requirements rather than consumers, given that the latter are mentioned 57 times in the documents of the body, and consumers – only 10.
In any case, according to the official Twitter account of the UK competition authority, at the moment, after 11 days, the stage of obtaining information from the public has been completed, and the investigation continues. We do not know how strongly user complaints will be taken into account, but, nevertheless, they will be part of the proceedings to some extent.
The deadline for formally announcing CMA’s position on the takeover, which could also result in the termination of proceedings in favor of Microsoft, is March 2023. This period should also see estimates from the European Union and other regulators estimating a maximum takeover worth nearly $70 billion.
