Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard may have to be delayed a while longer

While it's looking more likely that Microsoft will be able to close its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the specific date of the deal to actually close is still in flux after today's hearing of the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

The CAT held a case management conference today to rule on whether or not Microsoft's current appeal of the UK Competition and Markets Authority's decision to block the Activision Blizzard deal should be put on hold.

In the end, according to the FOSSpatents Twitter account, the CAT agreed to delay that appeals hearing provisionally. However, the CMA will have to provide certain evidence to the CAT sometime before mid-day on Thursday before the ruling becomes official.

At the moment, it looks like the CMA is trying to work with both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard to solve their differences on this acquisition deal. However, it also likely means that the deal's current deadline of July 18th may have to be extended. It would seem that Microsoft wants to do things by the book, rather than go over the CMA's head and force a closing of the deal before some kind of agreement with the regulator could be reached.

The CMA announced on Friday that it would extend its investigation of the deal from July 18 to August 29. This extension would give Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, and the CMA time to talk and for Microsoft to create a new deal that would get the CMA's approval.

Originally, the regulator blocked the deal because it felt Microsoft would have an anticompetitive advantage in the cloud gaming market. Unconfirmed rumors claim Microsoft might sell off at least part of its cloud gaming services in the UK to a third party as a remedy for this issue.