From the lawyer
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THE LAST 10 DAYS
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March 8th: The CMA published the responses from the parties (MS and Sony) to the suggested remedies.
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March 10th: MS published a website explaining the benefits of bringing Call of Duty to 150 million more players.
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March 14th: Microsoft signed a licensing deal with cloud gaming provider Boosteroid.
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March 15th: Microsoft signed a licensing deal with cloud gaming provider Ubitus.
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March 16th: MS officially offered remedies to the EC, making ABK's catalog of games, including Call of Duty, available to rival cloud gaming services. There are no remedies regarding console and PC OS markets.
Second update about the topic.
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March 16th: New provisional deadline for the decision from the EC, May 22nd 2023.
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March 16th: The CMA published 9 responses to the provisional findings, MS, ABK, Sony and 6 market participants.
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March 17th: The lawsuit from gamers has been dismissed and they'll have to redraft the complaint.
NEXT KEY DATES:
- Late March 2023: meetings and discussions with the CMA regarding the remedies working paper.
- Late March 2023: the EC will conduct the market test for the remedies proposed by MS.
- April 18th 2023: second extension of the original outside date. If MS quits by that date they have to pay a termination fee of $2,500,000,000; if they don't, the outside date gets extended until July 18th 2023.
- April 26th 2023: final report and remedies from the CMA.
- April 28th 2023: decision from New Zealand.
- April - May 2023: decision from the SAMR in China.
- May 22nd 2023: final decision from the EC.
- July 18th 2023: The end of the second extension and final outside date in the merger agreement. If MS quits by that date they have to pay a termination fee of $3,000,000,000; if they don't, they'll have to renegotiate the outside date with ABK.
- August 2nd 2023: beginning of the FTC in-house trial.
- Early 2024: decision from the FTC administrative law judge.
- Anything beyond that: unknown