Machiavellian said:
I totally disagree, I actually believe from what I am hearing that this deal will definitely go through and that it will go through without any real problems for MS. Way to much concentration on things that this deal really doesn't matter to MS which they can easily provide concessions for. If anything I believe MS is happy about the current discourse going on because I believe it plays right into their strengths and what they will have to give up will be not of importance to what they want from this deal. |
Eh...FTC may sue to block and while Microsoft can beat them easily in court, it's the CMA who is the problem here, if CMA blocks the deal, then Microsoft has to appeal to CAT who ultimately throw the decision back to CMA who can then just block the deal again, the CMA has very little legal oversight and very rarely loses.
By comparison to the FTC, who don't actually approve anything, they just let it pass, nor do they actually block anything, they get the courts to block deals, the CMA doesn't do either of those things, it's CMA who approves or blocks things without any court oversight, that's at least my understanding from what I've read.
So, we need to be careful that if FTC sues to block it doesn't encourage CMA to block because if it does then the deal is likely dead.
I think it's still more likely to go through than not, but I doubt Microsoft wanted to make concessions this extreme, a 10-year guarantee to a competitor is an extreme concession, Hoeg spoke on this that he thinks it's the absolute maximum that Microsoft is willing to offer and they're doing so in the hope that they get the issue out of the way.
Plus, if FTC does sue to block, which is a strong possibility regardless of the reasoning as they've sued to block a lot of deals lately and are very eager to look like they're cracking down on big tech, it would very likely mean that Microsoft has to renegotiate the acquisition with ABK as the court case will likely delay the closure date beyond July 2023.
If a renegotiation does happen, it means that the acquisition has to be redone, if ABK still desires to be acquired, and that will almost certainly lead to ABK asking for an even higher sale price than $68bn and Microsoft used that cash when interest was at shit levels so who knows how much higher than $68bn they're willing to go now that interest is back at decent levels.
There could be two angles at play from the FTC here even if their arguments don't make any sense.
- Sue to block and hope that CMA also blocks, effectively killing the deal.
- Sue to block and hope it delays things long enough that it extends beyond the July closure date, causing either Microsoft or ABK to back out of the deal.
Either option would make FTC look like they won against big tech even if they didn't technically win in a court of law, Lol. I'm at about 60% that the deal passes, it will likely still pass, but Microsoft definitely didn't expect this level of scrutiny from regulators, hence why Brad Smith is openly complaining a little too.
However! FTC could just be formulating a complaint/lawsuit to ask for concessions as that is the usual process, that would still make them look like they had a win against big tech, they can frame it as them strong arming Microsoft into concessions, this is more about politics lately than actual legally sound market arguments.
If FTC is only asking for concessions, then they'll pass as I doubt CMA will solo Microsoft.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 28 November 2022
