EU regulator extends the deadline for its decision on Microsoft Activision merger

videogameschronicle.com:

The European Commission has extended the deadline for its decision on Microsoft‘s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

In a filing on Wednesday, the EU competition regulator said it had pushed back its provisional deadline to rule on the deal by 10 days to April 25.

The move came a day after EU antitrust boss Margrethe Vestager told Bloomberg that global regulators must not race to be the first to reach a conclusion on mega deals.

Last month, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had provisionally found that Microsoft’s Activision deal could reduce competition and “result in higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation” for players.

The regulator outlined several potential structural remedies that could help clear a path to it approving the deal, including a partial divestiture of Activision Blizzard that could see it selling off the part of the company that deals with Call of Duty – something Microsoft has said is not feasible or realistic.

However, the CMA said it would also consider behavioural remedies, such as Microsoft’s offer to make Call of Duty available on other platforms post-merger, although it views these as less favourable than structural ones which rarely require monitoring and enforcement once implemented.

Asked if she was surprised at the speed at which the CMA produced its findings, and whether regulators were now engaged in a race to do so, Vestager said: “I think that’s a very important discussion because we cannot be in a race. We need to serve the specific markets where we have jurisdiction.

“And I also hope that people working with us appreciate that we have a different legal framework. I think in Europe we are the ones with the highest bar, the most heavyweight legal