The two companies had originally agreed to complete the transaction by July 18, but regulatory pushback from the U.S. and the U.K. delayed the takeover.
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If Microsoft had not extended the deal deadline, the company could have been on the hook for a $3 billion breakup fee to Activision Blizzard. By extending the period for the companies to close their transaction, Microsoft and Activision are giving themselves more time to satisfy regulators’ concerns and to get it over the line.
A new agreement between Microsoft and Activision, struck on July 18, included a provision to bump up the termination fee by increments at certain periods, if the merger is not agreed by the new deadline.
By Aug. 29, the breakup fee will be increased to $3.5 billion if the transaction is terminated by the parties, while by Sept. 15, the potential breakup fee will rise to $4.5 billion.
UK regulator ready to negotiate
The extension was made as the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority moved to delay its review of the deal until Aug. 29. Microsoft and Activision are now giving themselves enough time for the CMA appraisal to finalize.
The CMA had initially blocked the transaction in May, citing concerns over the threat to competition in the nascent cloud gaming market. The U.K. regulator changed tack and paused all litigation after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to block the deal failed in court.
The CMA said it was “ready to consider any proposals from Microsoft to restructure the transaction” in a way to satisfy the regulator’s concerns.
The regulator will now need to open a fresh review into the deal based on its past work. While this could ordinarily take several months, the watchdog is looking to expedite the process to meet its own Aug. 29 deadline.
The CMA will allow Microsoft to submit a restructured deal. When the European Union gave the greenlight for the takeover, it was predicated on some concessions from Microsoft, which included royalty-free licenses to cloud gaming platforms to stream Activision games.
Microsoft offered similar concessions to the CMA, but the remedies were rejected, as the regulator argued they were hard to enforce and wouldn’t address concerns over a concentration of power in the cloud gaming space. Microsoft will have to come up with a new package of measures beyond its previous offer to allay the CMA’s concerns.
Regulators around the world had been concerned about the nature of the deal due to concerns it could limit distribution of Call of Duty.
Sony and other industry players had expressed concern that Microsoft could have kept Call of Duty off of its PlayStation platform or reduced the quality of the game on competing platforms.
The Activision board also agreed a 99 cents per share dividend.
Chief Executive of Apple, Tim Cook gives a thumb’s up during a tour the Apple Headquarters on December 12, 2024 in London, England.
Chris Jackson | Getty Images
Apple has triumphed over an effort from the U.K. government to keep details secret of its appeal against an order to create a “backdoor” to iPhone users’ data.
The U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal on Monday published a ruling dismissing the government’s attempt to prevent details from a hearing on the appeal from being made public. The government had tried to keep the information secret on the grounds it posed risks to national security.
Judges Rabinder Singh and Judge Jeremy Johnson said in their ruling that the U.K. government’s request to keep details of the hearing private “would be the most fundamental interference with the principle of open justice.”
“It would have been a truly extraordinary step to conduct a hearing entirely in secret without any public revelation of the fact that a hearing was taking place,” they said.
Britain’s Home Office was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
This backdoor would allow the government to access information secured by Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) system, which applies end-to-end encryption to a wide range of iCloud data.
Governments in the U.S., U.K. and EU have long expressed dissatisfaction with end-to-end encryption, arguing it enables criminals, terrorists and sex offenders to conceal illicit activity.
In the U.K., the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016 empowers the government to compel tech companies to weaken their encryption technologies through so-called “backdoors” — a heavily controversial policy for both the tech industry and privacy campaigners.
Apple — which is known for its pro-privacy stance — has pushed back on efforts to weaken its encryption tools, saying this would undermine its security and put users at risk.
As a result of the government’s order, Apple withdrew its ADP system for U.K. users in February. In a blog post at the time, the tech giant said it has “never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will.”
“We are deeply disappointed that our customers in the UK will no longer have the option to enable Advanced Data Protection (ADP), especially given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy,” Apple said in the post.
“Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and we are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk reacts on the day of a rally in support of a conservative state Supreme Court candidate of an April 1 election in Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S. March 30, 2025.
Vincent Alban | Reuters
Technology stocks teetered in volatile trading Monday as President Donald Trump stood by his sweeping global tariff plans following last week’s devastating selloff.
The Magnificent Seven stocks — Nvidia, Apple, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet — were largely lower after briefly rallying amid a short-lived broader market attempt to stage a rebound. Stocks temporarily jumped on speculation of a possibly delay in the tariffs, but the White House later dismissed talk of a pause.
The technology sector is coming off a brutal week. The Magnificent Seven stocks collectively shed more than $1.8 trillion in market value during a two-day market selloff, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded its worst week since the onslaught of the pandemic and entered a bear market.
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Trump held firm on his aggressive global tariffs plans over the weekend, with an initial unilateral 10% tariff going into effect Saturday. Wall Street hoped for progress on negotiations between the administration and other countries or news of a possible delay in reciprocal tariffs slated for April 9.
“I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night, downplaying the recent market meltdown.
Other technology stocks also looked to build on last week’s pain. Oracle and Palantir Technologies declined more than 2% each.
Some semiconductor stocks also struggled as investors fretted over potential demand destruction stemming from the tariffs. Advanced Micro Devices was last down about 4% each, while Intel declined more than 2%.
Nintendo on Wednesday unveiled details for the Switch 2. It’ll include a bigger screen and controllers and is a faster version than its predecessor, which sold more than 150 million units since its 2017 release.
The Switch 2 will hit store shelves on June 5 for $449.99, up from $300 for the original Switch. Like the first Switch, gamers will be able to use the Switch 2 as both a handheld console and hook it up to a television. Nintendo on Friday said it would delay preorders for the device following President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs.”
The device will launch with the game “Mario Kart World.” Other games comingfor the Switch 2 include “Donkey Kong Bananza,” “Street Fighter 6,” “The Duskbloods” and “Kirby Air Riders.”
Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser sat down with technology correspondent Steve Kovach in a CNBC exclusive interview after unveiling the new console’s details. Bowser touched on the technology boosts in the Switch 2, upcoming games, the future of Nintendo’s efforts in film and entertainment beyond video games, and what Trump’s new tariffs mean for console prices in the U.S.