Although the agreement for the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft was announced at the beginning of the year, there are still many deadlines to meet. The business movement will be effective in 2023 if everything goes as planned, but before that happens from the United Kingdom an investigation arises.
Specifically, the one that is going to be carried out by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the antitrust regulatory body of the territory. As they point out from Reuters, this investigation aims to ascertain whether the purchase would reduce competition in the United Kingdom.
Taking into account the official publication made by the CMA, we can verify that it will pronounce a decision with a deadline of September 1 of this same year. However, the institution “cannot guarantee that the decision will be announced on or before the current deadline.” Both Activision Blizzard and Microsoft have been informed about the opening of this process.
The consequences of the acquisition are multiple and in different ways. For example, everything indicates that Bobby Kotick will leave his position as CEO of Activision Blizzard, while Microsoft has already taken a position on cases of harassment and discrimination. In addition, the exclusivities on Xbox with the arrival of new IPs have been resolved by Matt Botty.