LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s antitrust regulator said it was ready to consider proposals to restructure Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard, which it blocked in April, after a U.S. court ruled on Tuesday that it could go forward.
Microsoft responded by saying it was “considering how the transaction might be modified in order to address those concerns in a way that is acceptable to the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority)”.
The antitrust regulator said it would consider any proposals from Microsoft to restructure the transaction in a way that would address the concerns set out in its decision.
“In order to be able to prioritise work on these proposals, Microsoft and Activision have agreed with the CMA that a stay of litigation in the UK would be in the public interest and all parties have made a joint submission to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to this effect,” a CMA spokesperson said in a statement.
The CMA became the first major antitrust regulator to block the deal in April, citing concerns about competition in the nascent cloud gaming market.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle, writing by William James)
