Ukraine becomes seventh jurisdiction to approve Microsoft-Activision merger

Ukraine has officially approved the Microsoft-Activision merger, becoming the seventh worldwide jurisdiction to greenlight the $68.7 billion deal.

Last week, Ukraine announced a decision to lend its approval to Microsoft's proposed buyout of North America's biggest independent video games publisher Activision Blizzard King. Unlike the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK and the European Commission in the UK, Ukraine notes that the merger does not have any anti-competitive effects on its domestic market for two reasons.

The first is that neither company offers cloud gaming in Ukraine, which is the main reason that the CMA chose to block the merger; and the second is that neither Activision nor Microsoft have a significant aggregate share of specific markets due to widespread segmentation effects.

In short, Ukraine has determined that the combination of Microsoft and Activision will not harm its domestic market due to the strong amount of competing companies that are spread across widely-segmented markets (cloud, mobile, PC, console, etc).

"Microsoft Corporation" is the world's largest software manufacturer, the owner of Xbox game consoles, and one of the leading areas of its activity is the cloud service. Activision Blizzard, Inc. is the developer of such games as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush.

The markets involved in the concentration on the territory of Ukraine are:

• publisher of gaming software for PCs, consoles and mobile devices;
• digital distribution (digital showcase) of software for video games;
• media advertising.

"Note that Microsoft Corporation and Activision Blizzard, Inc. do not carry out economic activities in the field of cloud gaming services in Ukraine , therefore, the concerns expressed by the EC and the reasons for the prohibition of concentration in Great Britain are not relevant for assessing its impact on the dynamics of competition in Ukraine. Taking into account the above-mentioned factors, the Committee allowed the specified concentration."

Ukraine has become the seventh global regulator to approve the deal, and here is a list of all the regions that have greenlit the merger:

1. Japan (JFTC) - Link
2. Serbia (CPC) - Link
3. Brazil (CADE) - Link
4. Chile (FNE) - Link
5. Saudi Arabia (GAC) - Link
6. South Africa (SACC) - (Pending Approval) Link
7. Ukraine (AMCU) - Link