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[Ryuu96]

aTokenYeti said:

Hoeg did not put a percentage on it be he said he still thinks the deal goes through with remedies.

Idas apparently said (though I cannot find it and I got tired of scrolling back through posts) before the recent EU news that he gave the deal a 25% chance of going through globally.

Most of the financial analysts still think it’s going to go through.

I am wondering what accounts for the wide variance of opinions here. A theory I saw on twitter that I think has merit is that because this deal is so large and “not normal”, an extra political dimension has been introduced that is throwing previous precedents out the window. The FTC and CMA in particular have political motivations to at least appear as though they are being tough on tech.

I remain optimistic this deal goes through, and if the CMA accepts behavioral remedies then I think it’s virtually certain the FTC will be brought back to the negotiating table. I think regardless we will have a clear understanding of if this deal will happen by the end of April

I'd say that at the start of this, I think most antitrust specialists, lawyers or anyone with knowledge in this field would have been extremely confident in this deal going through because legally it should have been easy, there are no laws that this deals infringes upon, antitrust or otherwise and the market data is in Microsoft's favour.

However, a lot were likely caught off guard by the current political climate, even Microsoft were caught off guard and didn't expect this level of scrutiny, a lot thought that the FTC would pass it. So I think this is one of a few reasons why there are so many different opinions now, there is simply a lot of uncertainty which makes it harder to gauge now.

Most still seem to agree that the FTC will absolutely lose in court, they have zero legal standing for blocking the deal and courts will side with the actual law. The CMA has always been the final boss/wildcard in all of this. CMA being a complete wildcard makes judging it harder to do alongside the political climate.

If you think CMA will accept behavioural remedies then you should basically think this deal is a lock for approval but if you believe that CMA won't accept behavioural remedies then you're more likely to be extremely pessimistic on the deal passing, ultimately, nobody knows what the CMA will do but the PF seem to indicate behavioural will be hard to accept.

I also think that some (not Hoeg) don't realise how incredibly hard it is to overcome the CMA or how hard it is to make them accept behavioural remedies and a few don't seem to realise just how little oversight the CMA has. I've seen a few who aren't familiar with UK's CMA (because they specialise in American law).

It seems that among some financial fellas (like Patcher) there is a belief that if the CMA blocks the deal, Microsoft can just appeal it like they can in USA/EU and take CMA to court. I've seen a lot of "Wtf" and surprise at how the CMA operates during the course of this deal from American industry analysts. Fact is, if CMA blocks the deal then Microsoft is fucked, they have FAR more power and less oversight than FTC and even EC do.

If Microsoft appeals CMA's decision then it goes to CAT who almost always side with the CMA because they usually have to find that CMA has broken some sort of rules. When Meta appealed CMA's decision to CAT, they agreed with CMA on 5/6 counts but agreed with Meta on the last count relating to redactions for confidentiality but agreed with CMA on the block.

So CMA went back and fixed that aspect where they made a mistake and blocked it again, Lol.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 04 March 2023