Brazil's Administrative Council on Economic Defense (CADE) approved Microsoft's planned $69 billion takeover of video game maker Activision.
Brazilian antitrust regulator CADE approved the deal without conditions, according to a filing on the regulator's website.
The Brazilian approval comes after several other international regulators (including the U.S., UK, European antitrust officials and Australia) have started more in-depth or lengthened reviews on the mega deal. In addition, competitors such as Sony and Google are said to have voiced their concerns about the deal to regulators.
Google had interactions with Brazil's antitrust regulator on the deal, according to regulatory filings in Brazil.
"Furthermore ,it is important to highlight that the central objective of CADE's activities is the protection of competition as a means of promoting the well-being of Brazilian consumers, and not the defense of the particular interests of specific competitors,"
the regulator said in the filing.
“In this sense, although it is recognized that part of the users of PlayStation consoles (from Sony) could decide to migrate to Xbox in the event that Activision Blizzard games – and especially Call of Duty– become exclusive to the Microsoft ecosystem, SG/Cade does not believe that such a possibility represents, in itself, a risk to competition in the console market as a whole.”
The Brazilian regulator was one of the first to publicly share its correspondence around the merger, including unprecedented access to Q&A responses from companies such as Sony, Ubisoft, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
A U.S. Federal Trade Commission decision on the deal may come as early as late November, though FTC staff are said to have significant concerns about the transaction.
The UK's antitrust regulator on Tuesday set a deadline of March 1 to decide on the purchase of the video game giant.
Microsoft on Friday filed with the European Commission for the Activision deal and the authority set a provisional of Nov. 8 to make an initial decision on the combination.
Source: Seeking Alpha, VGC News
