Britain’s Competition Appeal Tribunal grants adjournment on Microsoft-Activision deal

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Competition Appeal Tribunal granted the adjournment application which was requested jointly by the antitrust regulator, the CMA, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:), as part of the latter’s plan to try to buy Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:).

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is waiting for Microsoft to submit a modified deal structure which the U.S. software giant hopes will help it gain UK regulatory approval to buy “Call of Duty” maker Activision.

As part of this, the CMA extended its final deadline on the deal to Aug. 29 and together the pair applied to the CAT to pause the appeals process, which it agreed to do in a statement on Friday.

The CMA initially blocked the $69 billion deal in April over concerns about its impact on competition in the cloud gaming market, but it has since reopened talks on the deal.