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After making a provisional decision to pause the appeals battle between Microsoft and UK Competition and Markets Authority earlier this week, the country’s Competition Appeals Tribunal ruled on Friday to make that decision official.
Microsoft quickly filed an appeal to the CAT soon after the CMA blocked the company from buying Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. The appeal was set to be heard next week by the CAT. However, after the US Federal Trade Commission failed to get the courts to place a preliminary injunction on the deal’s closing, Microsoft and the CMA agreed that Microsoft could send a new proposal for getting the CMA’s approval.
However, they first had to ask the CAT to pause the appeal. In their ruling on Friday, and after hearing from witnesses from both Microsoft and the CMA, the CAT said that it was “satisfied that an adjournment is required and desirable in this case.”
With that formality out of the way, it appears to be up to Microsoft to come up with a new proposal that will satisfy the CMA enough so it can approve the revised deal. The regulator originally blocked the deal because it felt that Microsoft would have an unfair advantage in the cloud gaming space if its purchase of Activision Blizzard would go through.
Since then, the European Union decided to approve the purchase, with certain conditions. That included giving gamers a free license to stream “all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games for which they have a license.” Also, the group’s European Commission regulator said “an independent trustee will be in charge of monitoring their implementation.”
It’s possible Microsoft could suggest similar conditions to the CMA in its new proposal. Another unconfirmed rumor claims Microsoft could even sell off at least part of its cloud gaming business to a third party.
However, it’s clear that it will be up to Microsoft to make the first move. Sarah Cardell, the chief executive at the Competition and Markets Authority, stated in an interview this week, ” The ball is very much in their court at the moment.” Reuters reports that the CMA expects to make at least a provisional decision on a new Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal proposal during the week of August 7.
