Microsoft's Brad Smith Calls UK's CMA "Tough And Fair" Regarding Pushback On Activision Blizzard Acquisition
One constant of the last year's worth of news swirling aroundMicrosoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard was the back-and-forth bickering between the tech giant and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority as the deal headed to a close. Now, Microsoft's Brad Smith seems to have softened his tone a bit regarding the CMA.
One of the more vocal voices on Microsoft's side of the aisle during the acquisition process, Microsoft President Brad Smith, who once famously declared theCMA's initial decision to block the merger in the UK «bad for Britain,» in a new interview he's now saying that the opposition by the regulator was «tough and fair.»
Via the BBC's Today Programme, Smith said that the opposition «pushed Microsoft to change the acquisition» the company had initially proposed, which it ultimately did late last year to push it over the finish line.
«It pushed Microsoft to change the acquisition that we had proposed, for Activision Blizzard to spin out certain rights that the CMA was concerned about with respect to cloud gaming,» Smith stated to the BBC.
The major sticking point for the UK regulator was down to cloud streaming rights, something Microsoft appeased when it spun off the rights to stream Activision Blizzard games in the European Economic Area to Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft for a period of fifteen years.
The CMA's opposition wasn't the only hurdle to get the deal done, but it was one of the toughest. The Federal Trade Commission challenged the deal in court, but a federal judge rejected the commission's request for an injunction, paving the way for the acquisition to complete.
Since the acquisition was completed, Microsoft has made some moves with the company, seeing off former CEO Bobby Kotick late last
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