Microsoft has hired a lawyer who has repeatedly defeated the EU as it seeks to overturn a decision by Britain’s competition regulator to block its £55bn gaming takeover.
The US tech giant has enlisted Daniel Beard KC as it prepares to lodge an appeal at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in the coming days.
The company hopes a legal challenge will rescue its $69bn (£55bn) takeover of Activision, the gaming company behind
Call of Duty, after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
blocked the deal last month.
Mr Beard of Monckton Chambers is seen as a leading competition barrister and has overturned multi-billion dollar penalties levied on Apple and Intel by the EU in recent years.
He represented Apple in
an appeal against a €13bn (£11.4bn) EU tax demand after Margrethe Vestager, the bloc's competition chief, declared Ireland had offered it illegal state aid. Apple won the appeal, though Ms Vestager is now seeking to reinstate the order.
Last year, Mr Beard overturned a €1.1bn fine handed to Intel more than a decade ago after the European Commission had claimed the company had abused its dominance of the microchip market. The case was seen as a landmark blow for Brussels’ attempts to rein in Big Tech.
Mr Beard had represented Microsoft in the late stages of hearings with the CMA, before the regulator blocked the takeover in April.
The CMA’s decision, the first major acquisition it has rejected since
assuming new merger powers after Brexit, led to accusations from Activision that Britain was “closed for business”. Microsoft said the decision meant that the EU was a better place to set up a company than the UK.
finance.yahoo.com
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