The FTC approach at this point is to throw shit at the wall and hope something sticks. They are the party that needs to prove immediate and irreparable harm, so the burden of proof is on them.
We know from the CMA documents that Sony has been offered COD on PS+, even day 1, they’re just not willing to shell out the money. This is Sony’s problem, and not harm to competition.
Whatever it is, it is a solution that Microsoft came up with back in June. I imagine both parties are OK with the solution at this point and the CMA is stretching it out to make themselves appear thorough.
I think it’s positive because they have outlined the mechanism by which the deal can realistically be approved in the U.K. And its probably the shortest one they realistically could offer.
I never saw any mechanism by which they could just nod something through without either a new investigation or as is preferable revising findings in their final order.
The question now is simply what happens in between. Can MS close or not. Nobody seems to know.
My understanding has always been that, unlike the FTC that can be closed over, the CMA cannot.
So if the CMA block a deal, it is dead. Only the CAT or judicial review can overrule the CMA. Hence why the CAT hearing was so important, as well as why MS is bending over backwards to accommodate the CMA whilst standing firm against the FTC.
The other thing to consider here is that now MS have essentially what looks to be a likely yes in the U.K. there is absolutely no reason why in my view they wouldn’t if necessary be able to comfortably extend the merger agreement with ABK if necessary.
The issue before was always the likelihood of overturning the UK decision wasn’t high and therefore an extension to fight in two fronts was a harder push for ABK to swallow and presumably they’d want a higher insurance payout to do so.
Now though even if there is a stay granted, even if this drags to fall there isn’t any reason (assuming the CMA are going to approve - never assume with them) that they can’t extend the merger agreement relatively easily should it come to that.
May 22nd, EU approves the acquisition, CMA vehemently defends its stance. There’s a huge political blowback for UK being ‘closed to business’
June 6th, Brad Smith has a meeting with the UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt and the CMA, Hunt coerces the CMA to reconsider and reenter negotiations. The CMA and MS begin looking for a solution together. The FTC catches wind that the CMA might actually approve after all
June 12th, the FTC for preliminary injunction
June 19th, MS submits the final proposal to the CMA. The CMA puts it on hold as it waits for the result of the process in the US
July 11th, the judge rules in Microsoft’s favor. The CMA can now fully evaluate Microsoft’s proposal, probably being OK with Microsoft closing it before July 18th
So the only issue now is if the court of appeals grants the emergency relief, if it doesn’t the deal closes tomorrow or Monday.
It is true that the FTC rushing for PI makes sense if they heard (unethically) that CMA was ready to unblock. As long as the CMA was on the front, they could just wait.
That’s obviously what happened. They got wind of a deal with the CMA and decided to push the emergency button. At this stage I’d say though that even if they win a stay it surely doesn’t make a lot of difference.
I suspect the CMA is waiting for the TRO to expire or for the court of appeals to give its stance one way or the other, if MS is clear to go in the US then the CMA might revise its interim order Monday morning I imagine.
Extending the deal could cost Microsoft billions of dollars (the price would have to be renegotiated), the CMA knows it so they’ll likely give a go-ahead. The UK’s reputation as a cooperative and non-obstructionist country is on the line here.
It could have cost them when there were greater uncertainties. But now it looks pretty clear that by the end of August they will have U.K. clearance and therefore why would ABK want a higher exit fee for an extension to cover that?
I think it’s completely different to say an extension for the CAT process where everyone can do the basic analysis to see the chance of overturning the decision is not high so you were asking ABK for an extension to probably end up blocked again.
This time we are talking maybe two or three months but with things more or less being certain to close then…I don’t see why that would cost MS much if anything.
The FTC is still trying to delay the deal, ignoring more important things and wasting their budget.
The CMA and Microsoft are in talks to divest something in the UK. As the CAT judges all agree that they don’t deserve any more time, so letting this deal go to the the actual Tribunal is more likely a Microsoft win(yes, this is an opinion, but one that’s reasonable imo) that would undermine the UK regulators. As well as the UKs government position in the world.
Unfortunately it sounds like the CMA is going to force a worse deal on the UK just to save face.
The original price of $95/share was negotiated in January 2022. If the terms of the deal change in July 2023, then it’s ABK’s board’s duty to negotiate a new price? That’s how I see it. Of course, the negotiations might go with Microsoft refusing to negotiate anything and ABK has to take it or leave it (along with the $3B fee).
I think the deal will close Monday if the emergency relief is denied (or ignored lol), but we’ll see. There’s no uncertainty on the UK part anymore.
Thats not what the delisting from NASDAQ-100 implies. The news dont tell us that ATVI will be delisted from NASDAQ stock exchange. These are two different things.
Even though I don’t think you’re being intentionally pessimistic to bring the morale down, I feel like you’re being overly cautious since the beginning. At this point everything both the CMA and FTC tried has been stomped on, the stock is likely disappearing Monday, literally everything points towards MS closing this in the coming days.
And to be honest with you even if these entities had legitimate grounds to block, I’d argue even that wouldn’t stop MS, I know I’ve mentioned this before and people don’t want to hear it, but a 3 trillion dollar company can get away with a lot of things if they really want to, and they’ve shown they really want this to go through.
I despise the state of Halo infinite and the lack of a future for the game since I love arena shooters, I understand most don’t agree with that so I don’t even open the halo thread, you could do the same for a couple of days till this is all over for better or for worse.
These Activison threads have been full of people who have been consistently proven wrong on all sides of the discussion, myself probably included. If you disagree with something someone says, be a part of the discussion and give your opposing side. Or just ignore 'em and move on. But these snide remarks that are too far after the fact and too unspecific to argue against just unnecessary and unpleasant, we’d never get anything else discussed if we did this for everything people have been wrong about in here.
We should all just be enjoying that things seem to be going well at the moment, not relishing that others may have been wrong or that others might feel differently.
