Why did Canada not say anything before? (Picture: Amazon)
The UK and US are not the only countries that are worried about the Activision Blizzard acquisition, as Canada has made clear.
Despite the fact that it’s only the US that has taken Microsoft to court over its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft does like to make a show of the fact that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is so far the only national agency to openly oppose the deal.
A number of countries, including the EU Commission, have been wary though, with Australia and New Zealand still yet to make a decision. Canada has not weighed in either, but they are closely monitoring the situation – to the point where they went to the effort of correcting Microsoft during their legal battle with the US’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The Canadian Competition Bureau took issue with Microsoft’s claim that ‘every single worldwide regulator’ except the CMA was okay with the acquisition, since Canada has not yet rendered its decision.
Canadian lawyer Jonathan Bitran wrote to Microsoft’s lawyers, in a document submitted as evidence by the FTC, saying that ‘the proposed merger is likely to result in a substantial prevention and/or lessening of competition with respect to gaming consoles and multigame subscription services (as well as cloud gaming).’
Microsoft’s rather terse reply to that was that they should’ve spoken up sooner, as they’ve already missed their chance to do anything about it.
Or, as they put it: ‘We received notice from the Canada Competition Bureau that it would continue to monitor our acquisition of Activision Blizzard after the formal waiting period preventing the deal to close expired.’
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It’s not clear whether Canada has any remaining legal recourse to stop the deal in its country but it’s obvious that it’s not impressed by Microsoft’s recent antics.
What would happen if Australia, New Zealand, or some other country came out against it is also hard to predict, as it’s still not known how Microsoft will handle the UK if the deal eventually goes through.
The most likely outcome is that Activision Blizzard will start to sell its games through a third party, or set up a separate UK subsidiary, but doing that for every country that says no could quickly become a burden.
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The UK and US are not the only countries that are worried about the Activision Blizzard acquisition, as Canada has made clear.