Microsoft was expected to offer remedies to EU regulators in an attempt to avert a statement of charge and shorten the regulatory process, other sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in November.
The EU competition enforcer, however, is not expected to be open to remedies without first sending out its charge sheet, although there are ongoing informal discussions on concessions, the people said.
Microsoft Faces EU Antitrust Warning Over Activision Deal - Sources | Reuters
Before anyone freaks out, Lol. Nothing much has changed, EC wants to issue a Statement of Objection first before they accept remedies from Microsoft. I'd say it's likely a good sign they're talking informally with Microsoft already on remedies but they won't talk formally on remedies until the Statement of Objection is ready. CMA is still the key.
However it does tell us that Microsoft's plan to speed up the process in EC ultimately failed. They tried to offer remedies before the Statement of Objection to avoid it being issued but the EC doesn't want to talk remedies until the Statement of Objection is issued. I'm fairly sure EC just wants it out there that they issued objections and got Microsoft to meet them.
Actually, I'm unsure if Microsoft did in the end decide to offer remedies to EC before the Statement of Objection, expected doesn't mean they did it and there were articles later which implied they decided not to.
Still haven't changed any confidence in it passing in the EU. I can't think of any good argument to block it, Xbox is irrelevant in half of EU's countries, Lol. Being steamrolled by PlayStation in most of them aside from UK. Plus the EC spokesperson saying that EC is very very likely to accept a deal with concessions.
