Bobby Kotick Expects 'Accelerated' Appeals Process in the UK Following 'Flawed' Microsoft Deal Block - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 May 2023 / 9,489 Views
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick in an interview with CNBC says he expected an "accelerated" appeals process after the UK regulator, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), blocked Microsoft’s $67.8 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard over concerns with cloud gaming.
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard quickly announced it would appeal the decision by the CMA, which will be reviews by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) of the UK. The goal from CAT is to complete "straightforward" cases in under nine months, however, Kotick thinks they will be able to fast track its case.
"When you look at the facts and you look at what the opportunities are for the UK, this was a transaction that was only going to enhance opportunities for competition, for our players, for employees, and it was just a flawed ruling in every respect," said Kotick via a transcription by VideoGamesChronicle. "And what it demonstrated to us is that these regulators, they don't really understand our business."
He added, "It was so flawed in every way that it is actually going to create a lessening of competition, which is the opposite of what their mission is, and so we think the appeals tribunal will see that and rule in our favor."
Kotick thinks Activision Blizzard and "Microsoft and our barristers, who are exceptionally experienced at judicial review, think that there’s a way to accelerate the process, and that the conclusions were so flawed, that we should be able to get an accelerated result."
The Activision Blizzard CEO was unable to give a timetable as they have yet to file their appeals briefing.
"I can't tell you what the timing will be yet, because we haven’t filed our appeals briefing, but we'll get a lot more detail over the course of the next week and really better understand what the timing will be," Kotick said.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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He clearly has something wrong with him.
Shouting at and running down the regulator is not going to help the process. In fact if he kept his big mouth shut it may have actually helped. Anyone with minimal IQ would know that ABK and the regulator need to work together to get this done. Confrontation won’t work.
Does make you wonder how people like him get positions of power.
Money, that's how.
they worked with them closely and nicely, even the CMA admitted that but now it's time to stop being nice, sometimes it gets you nowhere being nice.
Sounds like the ideals of a sociopath, like Kotick.
Well considering the amount involved and the time CMA took with it, this case certainly warrant an expedite process. It would still takes months however, unless MS can settle out of court with the CMA through the appeal process.
If the initial case took a long time to get a rulling I would expect a review to take even longer to have any chance of change.
Even on the fast track is 6 months minimum from what I heard. They also said MS/ABK doesn't fit the criteria for being fast tracked.
The process are not the same so it's not an apple to apple comparisons. Also the discovery part of the process should be fairly quick has the case would focus on CMA documentations, reasoning and conclusion which are all documented and should already be mostly disclosed to MS. I don't think new evidences/elements can be brought to the CAT appeals so will only focus on whether or not anyone, giving the information available to the CMA, would conclude as the CMA did.
Thanks for the detail. I know it isn't the same process, my point was just that if it was a simple case that would get a fast answer on appeal it wouldn't have took so many extensions to give even the initial rule. And the proof of CMA doing due diligence is how many interactions it have done, listened and even changing their understanding based on those documents provided. So the verbosity of Bobby and MS is quite preposterous (as was Sony when they said they didn't consider the merger to affect PS in a way that should be a concern).
Well that would be for the CAT to decide, 1 thing for sure nobody here expected the cloud gaming of all market to be the ground on which this deal would be blocked.
This is also reflected in pretty much every industry experts that pronounced themselves on the CMA decision.
I stated on here that the impact on gaming from this would revolve around cloud gaming, it has been obvious for a fair while now that MS wants to move away from dedicated hardware where it is behind and move to a cloud based subscription gaming service.
They see it as a new slate where they have the advantage but they also know it's still a decade or more away hence why they could give ten year deals, this is about a future revolving around a Game pass lead cloud ecosystem with Bethesda and ABK providing much of the exclusive content that is vital in a Netflix style cloud service.
This like most admin appeal processes will look at whether or not the CMA erred in matters of law, and usually in cases that involve appeals against administrative decisions if the appeal is upheld it then goes back to the body to be reheard .
Nah it's not based on the importance of the case. It's for small and medium sized companies that need things resolved quickly before they go under cause they can't afford to stay open and be in courts for years. Situations where a merger can literally stop the company from going under basically. Not only can MS afford it but this case isn't even important. It's two gaming companies trying to merge nothing really important about that. Being so large just means that both companies have the money and time necessary for CAT to take their time.
You are right. No less than a years, likely late 2024.
Bobby is gone eventually regardless of the outcome. I do tend to believe the 409 million he will make on his 4.3 million shares is certainly something he is going to fight for.
I think one thing we can say for sure, whether we support the deal or not, is that many of these regulators do not understand the gaming business. Some of the stuff they have said is just downright nonsensical.
They do understand the business, which is why they made the decision. They looked over everything extremely carefully.
They are so experienced that they made wrong subpoenas to Sony kkkk.
It will get the fast track to denial.
what's wrong about the subpoena? they asked them for records for the last 10 years and got 5, and they will reverse this. theyre getting approval across the planet, now 7 countries and still more to come. the CAT won't have any option but to send this back to the CMA for reversal. this deal is 100% happening. only a matter of when.
CMA do not reverse, appeals fail. Learn about other countries.
cma DOES reverse, that is the whole point of the CAT, companies appeal to it the CAT sends cases back to the CMA to re-review them again and get new remedies.
Appeals succeed, just in 2022 FNZ appealed and succeeded, the merger was blocked first then they appealed, got re-reviewed and it was approved. the deal went through.
and when the CAT sees the insane math error made by the CMA they will do a U-turn like the first time. the facts and math is on Microsoft's side. nothing can stop them
1 in 15 years, it's over son. Deal with it.
The deal isn't necessarily over even if an appeal with the CMA fails. They can create an Activision UK subsidiary, put all of ABK's properties in there, and run that business separately under whatever rules the CMA and/or the UK courts would accept. If they simply don't offer those games to the cloud, the UK courts may accept that since that is now the CMA's only stated concern.
It got rejected twice if I'm not wrong for glaring mistakes like putting the wrong name of the parties, address and generic requests.
the deal keeps getting approved everywhere else in the world, 7 countries as of now and if the EC approves it this May the CMA won't have a leg to stand on and the CAT will order them to review it and correct their flawed hilarious math, they thought the game pass 60% share of the market was cloud lol while only ultimate tier has cloud, and even on cloud ultimate only few people stream games. Nvidia on the other hand has 25 million subs and all of them are cloud, they are the market leaders of cloud. they also thought cloud providers sell games lol idk how they hired those people to review a gaming merger
