US can't 'stop' Microsoft, EU gives green light to Broadcom's $61 billion deal

The agency has asked the court to temporarily halt the acquisition of the game company behind the popular Call of Duty franchise. The FTC argues that this is the largest deal in the history of the gaming industry, which could give Microsoft the ability to “reduce competition in the market”.

Last month, the EU approved Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzards, but the deal is still blocked by the UK antitrust regulator.

Microsoft shares closed up 1.5% on the trading day on June 12, while Activision fell 0.8%.

Antitrust experts say the FTC will face an uphill battle to convince a judge to block the Windows giant's deal, given that the company has made voluntary concessions to allay concerns it could dominate the gaming market.

Meanwhile, another blockbuster tech deal has also been green-lighted by the EU.

Specifically, US chipmaker Broadcom has proposed to buy cloud computing company VMware for $61 billion. However, similar to Microsoft, the main obstacle is still the monopoly regulators in the UK.

The EU is expected to make a final decision on the Broadcom deal on July 17, while the UK will publish its provisional findings and remedies (if necessary) for the deal next month.

Broadcom, which makes chips for networked data centers and specialized processors that accelerate AI tasks, is looking to diversify into the enterprise software business.

(According to Reuters)