Xbox formally appeals UK block on Activision deal in a process that could take 9 months

(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Last month, UK regulators announced their decision to block the Xbox Activision deal, and now Microsoft has formally filed its appeal.

Microsoft filed its appeal to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) at the Competition Appeal Tribunal earlier today - which is the deadline for filing - according to a report from Bloomberg. The report notes that the process "could take as long as nine months." The tribunal's role is simply to ensure that the CMA's decisions are legal, and does not make judgements on the facts used to arrive at those decisions.

As Bloomberg adds, "the CMA has never overturned a decision on any case that has been sent back to it from the CAT." Still, we're potentially looking at the better part of a year before we learn the final word on the deal on the UK.

Despite the CMA's decision, EU regulators have approved the deal, with a few provisions requiring Microsoft to bring its games to competing cloud platforms. But a global business like Xbox's is going to require global approval, and between the CMA decision and the pending FTC lawsuit, the deal's chances are looking increasingly thin.

Either way, we'll learn what Microsoft has in store for the near future in the Xbox Games Showcase.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.