Activision Blizzard acquisition: US Chamber of Commerce attacks CMA for its mistakes

American Chamber of Commerce, attack The UK’s antitrust body, the CMA, on how it handled Microsoft’s assessment of the Activision Blizzard acquisition. The text that Sean Heater, senior vice president for international regulatory and antitrust affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce wrote on the latter’s website, never directly mentioned this case, but is well understood when he wrote:

“US companies have a responsibility to comply with the competition regulations in which they operate, but foreign regulators have a responsibility to ensure that.” Ensure fair ratings for these companiesin line with international best practices.

Then with reference to two other very controversial cases. Heater introduces the text by providing an indirect reference, motivating it with a document filled with andErrors and biases:

Some recent rulings have questioned the ability of US companies to obtain a fair evaluation from foreign antitrust agencies. They examined the American suspects Inappropriately purely American transactions It appears that we are cooperating with other regulators to deny justice to US companies.”

Hence a call to Congress and the White House to intervene so that international antitrust bodies express their assessments of American companies. In fairness and impartialityThey are guaranteed fair treatment.

Recalling some rules by which fair and impartial judgments can be expressed, Heater directly attacked the CMA (UK Competition and Markets Authority), not referring to the case of Microsoft, but to the case of Meta, whose acquisition of GIPHY was rejected. On appeal, the CMA was found to have expressed its assessment without considering critical evidence (the fact that Snap, Meta’s direct competitor in the acquisition process, has not experienced problems with the acquisition), but the takeover was prevented, even without objections from competitors.

The heating even calls into question the power of the interventions of international antitrust bodies over American companies, should such mistakes be repeated. In this way, the United States threatens the CMA if it commits further injustice if its decisions are not binding.

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