Europe may initiate sanctions against Microsoft if Activision buys Blizzard

It is already known to Microsoft and the FTC In court proceedings over the purchase of Activision Blizzard, after the negative opinion of the competition regulator in the United States. But this marathon is long, and Microsoft still doesn’t know if it will be able to win. And the other hurdle it was already known that an Xbox owner would face was the European Commission. And everything indicates that the technology will receive the first negative opinionwith an antitrust notice relating to $69 billion for business.

The news advanced PERA Reuters, which cites sources close to the matter, that Europe may join the FTC and make it difficult to complete the deal. According to the agency, Brussels is finalizing the document with a list of objections and concerns about the deal, which will then be sent to Microsoft in the coming weeks.. The proposed date has been set as the deadline for a decision response from the European Commission on 11 April.

Speaking to Reuters, Microsoft said it continues to work with the European Commission to address any market concerns. “the Our goal is to bring more games to more people and this work will extend the same periodsays a company spokesperson.

It should be noted that in the first note regarding the initial investigation, the The European Commission has previously declared that “A transaction may significantly reduce competition in the video game distribution markets for consoles and computersincluding multi-game subscription services and/or cloud game streaming services and PC operating systems.”

He added that the data collected allowed to conclude that Microsoft has the capacity and the financial capabilities to implement strategies that close the market to competitors and that type of strategy It can “lead to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation”, which will ultimately harm the consumer.

In the UK, things are not much different. to me Giving the UK regulator the go-ahead for the deal would be essential for Microsoft Accepting a range of concessions that the company ended up not makingthus moving the investigation to a deeper and longer stage.

In the case of the European Commission, Reuters advanced that Microsoft had offered some workarounds to try to avoid declaring an antitrust risk and speed up the regulatory process, but Brussels may not respond to any request before publishing its first official opinion on the matter.