governments Australia and New Zealand Decided Postponement of sentencing with approvalActivision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft.
With regard to New Zealand, this is yet another delay by the Trade Commission, and the third specifically. The application for evaluation was examined on July 27 with a response date set for August 11, and was later pushed back to September 2 and then to today, September 9. New Zealand Antitrust announced that it has decided to extend the investigation even furtherNovember 11th.
Instead, the Australian antitrust agency launched its investigation on June 16 and was supposed to reveal its decision on September 15. However, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website announced, a few hours ago, that the procedure has been suspended pending new information from Microsoft, with the new version The date has not yet been determined.
As reported a few days ago on our pages, the UK’s Capital Markets Authority has also decided to extend its investigation due to concern over a potential anti-competitive situation that could be created should Microsoft absorb Activision Blizzard. However, it must be said that all these postponements are partly justified by the scope and importance of this operation. At the moment, only Saudi Arabia in the world has given a clear opinion approving the takeover.
Microsoft expects to end its acquisition of Activision Blizzard by June 30, 2023. Phil Spencer recently said he had a “good feeling” about the outcome of the operation.
