The country’s Competition and Markets Authority has positioned itself as the final hurdle for the $69 billion acquisition.

After announcing in January 2022 that it had reached an agreement to buy Activision Blizzard Inc. for $69 billion, Microsoft Corp. spent a year and a half trying to persuade regulators not to stand in the way. It succeeded in dozens of countries. In one of the biggest tests, European Union officials approved the deal in May, after concluding that agreements Microsoft had struck to license games such as Call of Duty for use on other platforms for 10 years were pro-competitive. US Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan sued to stop the purchase, but she couldn’t persuade a federal court to go along with her. The FTC’s appeal failed on July 14.

That leaves the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority as the final stumbling block. The CMA said in April that it would move to block the deal after determining the tie-up would lead to less innovation and choice for the companies’ customers. That effectively put the deal on hold, because UK law prohibits the companies from closing a deal anywhere in the world without its approval. “There is a global context to the work that we are doing,” says Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, adding that her job is about “striking that balance between having focus on outcomes for the UK but taking account of that broader picture.”