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Ryuu96 on 30 May 2023
Machiavellian said:
Ryuu96 said:

CMA tried to argue their lawyers are too busy for a fast process, the judge responded that CMA's convenience isn't a high priority.

Whoof, Lmao.

Looks like MS rolled the dice and got the right judge.  At least in the beginning faze of this appeal.  The thing is if its looking bad for the CMA, would they try to close with MS instead of having the appeal goes MS way and the tribunal dropping or negating the Cloud SLC.  If that happen, it would be a worse case scenario for the CMA and I am sure they would not like to try to dance around something on that level.

So far so good, this judge is 1/3 of the CAT panel.

However today is mostly just about setting the terms of the court cases and dates.

Then the real battles begin.

But so far, CMA is being absolutely clowned in round 1 and the judge sounds like he needs more convincing of their market definitions.



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Ryuu96 on 30 May 2023

Date Set: July 24th.

CMA didn't anywhere near the date they wanted (September - October), Microsoft didn't get the date they wanted (June 22nd) but it's closer than CMA's.

First win goes to Microsoft.



Machiavellian on 30 May 2023
Ryuu96 said:

Judge to CMA: it seems dumb (I guess) to bring in someone who was not involved with the decision to come in and say they agree with it. It either has to be a panel member of the CMA with knowledge in economics or an economist within the council.

"The judge calling out the 'irrationality' of the CMA asking for new experts on their side. Judge saying just bring out the experts used on the initial decision instead of finding new experts who have to study the material in order to say the CMA did the right thing."

From the CMA arguments, you would assume that they actually did not use an expert to come to their decision because why would you need an outside expert to come to the same conclusion.  The person who came to the conclusion should be the one to defend their decision and of course the judge is using simple logic and wondering WTF is going on with the CMA.  This could really tarnish the CMA depending on how this goes and its not looking good.



Ryuu96 on 30 May 2023

Judge has set aside 10 days at a maximum but estimated around 6 days for the trial to last.

Microsoft wanted/thinks they can get it done in 4, Lol.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 30 May 2023

Ryuu96 on 30 May 2023

Judge reiterates the date is "fixtured" in "very heavy pencil".

Basically CMA won't be able to delay it, after CMA heavily argued they don't have the time/resources until September - October.



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Machiavellian on 30 May 2023

One another note, anybody see this from Xbox Australia.  Could be hinting at an upcoming game or just nothing.

https://twitter.com/XboxANZ/status/1663052516249026562?cxt=HHwWhIC-nfncrJQuAAAA



Ryuu96 on 30 May 2023
Machiavellian said:

One another note, anybody see this from Xbox Australia.  Could be hinting at an upcoming game or just nothing.

https://twitter.com/XboxANZ/status/1663052516249026562?cxt=HHwWhIC-nfncrJQuAAAA

Rule #1 - Regional accounts never tease anything major.

It's nothing.



EpicRandy on 30 May 2023
Machiavellian said:
Ryuu96 said:

Judge to CMA: it seems dumb (I guess) to bring in someone who was not involved with the decision to come in and say they agree with it. It either has to be a panel member of the CMA with knowledge in economics or an economist within the council.

"The judge calling out the 'irrationality' of the CMA asking for new experts on their side. Judge saying just bring out the experts used on the initial decision instead of finding new experts who have to study the material in order to say the CMA did the right thing."

From the CMA arguments, you would assume that they actually did not use an expert to come to their decision because why would you need an outside expert to come to the same conclusion.  The person who came to the conclusion should be the one to defend their decision and of course the judge is using simple logic and wondering WTF is going on with the CMA.  This could really tarnish the CMA depending on how this goes and its not looking good.

Or they paraphrased a little too much the expert they used, twisting/cherry-picking their conclusion to cater to their own conclusions, and as such they might fear said experts would contradict their conclusion in a hearing.

Either way, it's really strange for the CMA to make this request. An out-of-court agreement may not be as far-fetched as it seemed upon CMA's initial conclusion release.



EpicRandy on 30 May 2023
Machiavellian said:

One another note, anybody see this from Xbox Australia.  Could be hinting at an upcoming game or just nothing.

If you remove the ? and anything after in the link it should auto-embed.

Last edited by EpicRandy - on 30 May 2023

Ryuu96 on 30 May 2023

Today was mostly a win for Microsoft, they mostly got what they wanted with a few exceptions and we got an insight into one of CAT's judges who as of right now seems to not be convinced by CMA's arguments, things can change between now and then, it's CMA's job to convince him now and there are two other CAT judges we don't know about yet. Beard sounds like a legendary lawyer too.

Based on today's events, I'm feeling slightly more optimistic, I'd say about 15% of the deal closing

Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard WILL have to re-negotiate now, the next hurdle is now coming to new terms, will Activision-Blizzard get greedy and demand a lot more? Will Microsoft not be willing to pay it? We'll see but there is a chance that the deal could die on re-negotiations, I would lean towards it not though but Microsoft will likely have to fork out more cash.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 30 May 2023