Activision hires Queen’s former lawyer to lead appeal against CMA acquisition ruling
Activision Blizzard has reportedly employed high-profile UK lawyer Lord David Pannick KC – whose consumer record has included Queen Elizabeth II and Boris Johnson – to assist lead its appeal against the Competition and Merger Authority’s latest ruling against its proposed merger with Microsoft.
The CMA lately made the shock determination to block Microsoft’s $68.7bn acquisition of Activision following its months-long investigation, citing considerations over the deal’s influence on the cloud gaming sector, which it mentioned risked “stifling competition in this growing market”.
In response, Microsoft introduced it could be interesting the CMA’s determination, whereas Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick instructed employees the transfer would “stifle investment, competition, and job creation throughout the UK gaming industry”, insisting “it is far from the final word on this deal”.
As each events prepared to struggle the CMA’s determination, FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller is reporting Activision Blizzard has employed the “ultra-high-profile” Lord David Pannick KC to lead the corporate’s appeal, citing a “reliable source with connections in the legal community”.
Pannick is taken into account one of many UK’s prime attorneys, with a consumer record that has included Queen Elizabeth II, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the Partygate scandal, Manchester City after it was accused of economic misconduct, and former BBC director-general Mark Thompson, when a Christian group tried to prosecute the broadcaster for blasphemy after it aired Jerry Springer the Opera in 2005.
Mueller additionally highlights Microsoft’s equally high-profile hiring for its appeal, with the corporate set to be represented by Daniel Beard KC, described as “one of the Bar’s leading specialists in competition, EU, regulatory and public law” in his Monckton Chamber’s profile.
Appealing the CMA’s determination will likely be a prolonged course of for Microsoft and Activision; the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal goals to cope with easy instances inside 9 months, and if the appeal is profitable, it would return to the CMA for overview, which is able to once more take a while. As such, the appeal course of might go on past this 12 months, and that is with out choices from the US Federal Trade Commission and the EU’s European Commission, each of that are nonetheless scrutinising the acquisition for themselves.
