Microsoft's deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion is far from secure, with the UK government launching an investigation into the merger.
Announced today, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will investigate if the merger of the two companies would result in "a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services." A tweet by the CMA sums up the investigation a little differently: "We’ll consider if gamers could end up paying higher prices, with less choice or lower quality."
The CMA is inviting any interested party to comment on the transaction between now and the closing date of July 20. Those comments, if relevant and valid, will be used in the assessment of the acquisition before a final decision is made. It could be the deal is allowed to go ahead, gets blocked, or the CMA ends up requiring some tweaks before it is allowed to proceed.
As CNBC points out, this is the first time the deal is being investigated by a competition watchdog, and one with the potential to impact consumers as well as businesses. New York City has sued over the deal, and the FTC is reviewing it, so this scrutiny is far from over for Microsoft and Activision.