As we await the "Go/No Go" signal from the UK"s Competition and Markets Authority on Microsoft"s plan to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, a new report claims that Microsoft"s recent changes to that purchase plan will not have to go through another set of investigative probes by the European Union.
The EU"s regulatory body, the European Commission, approved Microsoft"s plan to buy Activision Blizzard back in May. However, the UK CMA rejected that same plan in April, claiming that it would give Microsoft an anti-competitive edge in the cloud gaming market.
Since then, Microsoft sent in a new plan to the CMA. Microsoft pledged to let current and future Activision Blizzard games be offered by Ubisoft via cloud streaming. The CMA has given provisional approval of that plan and is expected to give its full and final approval sometime before October 18.
There was some speculation that because of the changes to Microsoft"s plan, it might cause the EU to order a new investigation into that plan, which would have certainly delayed the company"s timetable to close the deal.
However, a new report from Bloomberg (via Yahoo), using unnamed sources, claims that the European Commission feels that the deal does not "need to go through yet another approvals process".
Officially, a spokesperson for the EC wouldn"t comment on the report, stating only that it was "closely following the developments in the UK and assessing their potential impact."
Microsoft is rumored to be preparing to finally close the deal to buy Activision Blizzard as early as this Friday, October 13. Even if the company does complete the purchase, it might have to still deal with the US Federal Trade Commission. It tried to unsuccessfully block the deal in court earlier this summer. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule on this current court case in early December.