Britain's anti-trust regulator, the Competition and Markets
Authority (CMA), vetoed the deal in April, saying it could hurt competition in
the nascent cloud gaming market.
Microsoft confirmed on Wednesday it had filed an appeal
against the ruling to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), and a summary of
its arguments was published on Friday.
It said the CMA's conclusion that the deal would lead to a
substantial lessening of competition in the United Kingdom's cloud gaming
market was wrong, according to the summary.
The CMA "made fundamental errors in its calculation and
assessment of market share data for cloud gaming services", Microsoft will
say at the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Microsoft set out five grounds for appeal in total.
The CMA's shock decision to block the biggest ever deal in
gaming drew a furious response from both companies.
Last week, Microsoft evaded a potential early legal obstacle
in its $69 billion deal to acquire Call of Duty video game maker Activision
Blizzard, when a US judge refused to allow gamers in a private suit to
preliminarily block the acquisition.
The private plaintiffs sued Microsoft in California federal
court in December to enjoin the deal, which they called harmful to competition.
US District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco
federal court said in a ruling issued late on Friday night that the video
gamers had not shown they would be "irreparably harmed" if the merger
were allowed to proceed before she rules on the merits of their case. © Reuters
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