After 18 months of battling their way through regulatory red tape, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are closer than ever to making their merger happen. However, with some issues still to smooth out in the UK, the companies weren't able to neatly tie things up in time for their initial July 18th deadline. As such, they've agreed to extend their merger agreement by three months to get the $68.7 billion acquisition over the line.

"Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have jointly agreed to extend the merger agreement deadline from July 18th, 2023 to October 18th, 2023, to allow for additional time to resolve remaining regulatory concerns," Microsoft said in a statement. 

If they hadn't agreed on new terms and either side walked away (which they could have done as of today), Microsoft would have been on the hook for a $3 billion breakup fee. That termination fee will increase to $3.5 billion if the merger hasn't closed by August 29th and $4.5 billion if it's not a done deal by September 15th. The fee will only be paid if the acquisition doesn't close. In addition, they agreed that Activision can give its shareholders a dividend of $0.99 per share.

"Microsoft and Activision Blizzard remain optimistic that we will get our acquisition over the finish line, so we have jointly agreed to extend the merger agreement to October 18th, 2023," Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer wrote in a note to employees. "While we can technically close in the United States due to recent legal developments, this extension gives us additional time to resolve the remaining regulatory concerns in the UK."

The Competition and Markets Authority, the UK's antitrust regulator, initially blocked the deal in April based on concerns over its impact on the cloud gaming market (deals Microsoft signed with third-party cloud gaming platforms were enough of a remedy for the European Union to approve the merger). Microsoft appealed the CMA's decision but with just days to go before the deadline, the CMA said it would be willing to review a modified merger proposal.

The CMA, Microsoft and Activision submitted a joint proposal to an appeals tribunal to delay their litigation by two months in an attempt to resolve the regulator's concerns amicably. The appeals tribunal granted that request on Monday. The CMA has also given itself an extra six weeks, until the end of August, to review Microsoft's new proposal. However, it hopes to do so as quickly as possible.

It's not quite clear when this might all be wrapped up one way or the other, but the CMA and both companies are aiming to do so very soon and certainly well before October 18th. One key date to look out for is August 2nd. That's when an evidentiary hearing in the Federal Trade Commission's administrative proceeding in an attempt to block the deal is scheduled to start. The FTC was unsuccessful in its efforts to obtain an injunction to stop the merger from happening in the meantime. However, if the deal hasn't closed by August 2nd and the FTC's administrative trial begins, things could get more complicated for Microsoft and Activision.

Intel has announced ASUS as the company's first partner for its Next Unit of Compute (NUC) mini PC business. The two companies have entered a non-binding agreement that will see ASUS manufacture, sell and support the 10th- to 13th-generation products in Intel's NUC line. ASUS will also develop future NUC designs. Based on the business' current lineup, ASUS could be developing future NUC mini PCs, DIY kits for mini PCs, DIY kits for laptops, customizable boards, chassis and other assembly elements. 

If you'll recall, Intel recently told Engadget that it's ending its "direct investment" in its NUC business and will no longer produce first-party NUC products. It didn't elaborate on its reasoning, but working with partners for a non-essential business will free up resources it could use to concentrate on making chips. Intel previously said its first quarter earnings exceeded expectations, but its revenue was still down 36 percent year-over-year when compared to its results in the same period for 2022. The company also said that it remains cautious in this economy. 

In its announcement of the partnership, Intel said ASUS' "expertise and track record delivering industry-leading mini PCs to customers make it ideally suited to continue driving innovation and growth in NUC systems products." ASUS will be establishing a new business unit called "ASUS NUC BU" for all things related to Intel's NUC. The manufacturer will receive a non-exclusive license to Intel's NUC systems, though, making it possible for the chipmaker to team up with more companies in the future. 

At the Microsoft Inspire partner event today, the Windows maker announced pricing for its AI-infused Copilot for Microsoft 365. The suite of contextual artificial intelligence tools, the fruit of the company’s OpenAI partnership, will cost $30 per user for business accounts. In addition, the company is launching Bing Chat Enterprise, a privacy-focused version of the AI chatbot with greater security and peace of mind for handling sensitive business data.

Revealed in March, Microsoft 365 Copilot is the company’s vision of the future of work. The GPT-4-powered suite of tools lets you generate Office content using natural-language text prompts. For example, you can ask PowerPoint to create a presentation based on a Word document, generate a proposal from spreadsheet data or summarize emails and draft responses in Outlook — all by typing simple commands. “By grounding answers in business data like your documents, emails, calendar, chats, meetings and contacts, and combining them with your working context — the meeting you’re in now, the emails you’ve exchanged on a topic, the chats you had last week — Copilot delivers richer, more relevant and more actionable responses to your questions,” Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s Chief Communications Officer, wrote in an announcement today.

Microsoft began testing Copilot with a small group of select enterprise partners earlier this year but hasn’t yet announced when all business customers will gain access. However, announcing its pricing could mean that date is fast approaching. The $30 / mo. pricing will apply to Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium customers. The company still hasn’t announced Copilot consumer pricing or availability.

Meanwhile, Bing Chat Enterprise is Microsoft’s more security-minded variant of the popular AI chatbot that launched for consumers in February. “Since launching the new Bing in February, we’ve heard from many corporate customers who are excited to empower their organizations with powerful new AI tools but are concerned that their companies’ data will not be protected,” Shaw wrote. “That’s why today we’re announcing Bing Chat Enterprise, which gives organizations AI-powered chat for work with commercial data protection. What goes in — and comes out — remains protected, giving commercial customers managed access to better answers, greater efficiency and new ways to be creative.”

Bing Chat Enterprise begins rolling out today in a preview — at no additional cost — for Microsoft 365 E5, E3, Business Premium and Business Standard customers. In addition, the company says it will make the enterprise-focused chatbot available as a standalone $5 subscription “in the future.”

Following a bitter, months-long feud over the company's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft and Sony have signed a deal to keep the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation consoles. "We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard," Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer tweeted Sunday morning. "We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and @PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard." 

The announcement comes after Microsoft on Friday defeated a last-ditch effort by the US Federal Trade Commission to scuttle the company's $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to grant the regulator an emergency stay of a ruling that allows the deal to proceed in the US. 

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

The problems keep mounting for Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky, as he’s been arrested and charged by federal authorities with fraud. Mashinsky faces seven criminal counts, including securities, commodities and wire fraud, as originally reported by CBS News. He and his company are being independent sued by three government agencies — the FTC, CFTC and SEC. The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Mashinsky misled customers regarding the nature of his company, making it seem like a bank when it was actually a high-risk investment fund.

Celsius’s former chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, was also arrested, with both Pavon and Mashinsky being charged with manipulating the price of the company’s proprietary crypto token so they could sell their own stock at inflated prices. 

“Mashinsky misrepresented, among other things, the safety of Celsius’s yield-generating activities, Celsius’s profitability, the long-term sustainability of Celsius’ high rewards rates and the risks associated with depositing crypto assets with Celsius,'' federal prosecutors wrote in a charging document obtained by CNBC.

Additionally, the FTC reached a $4.7 billion settlement today with Celsius, which nearly matches the record fines levied against Meta in 2019 for violating the privacy of consumers. The company has agreed to these financial terms, but will only make payments once it returns what remains in customer assets as part of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

This all follows a New York-based lawsuit issued in January that also alleged massive fraud. That suit seeks appropriate damages after Celsius allegedly defrauded investors out of "billions of dollars" in cryptocurrency.

While details are scant on today’s arrest, the New York suit alleges that Mashinsky misled customers about the company’s worsening financial health and failed to register as a commodities and securities dealer, among many other allegations. New York State Attorney General Letitia James alleged that Mashinsky deceived hundreds of thousands of investors, with over 26,000 of them located in New York.

If convicted on all counts, Mashinsky and Pavon face decades in prison. Mashinsky resigned as CEO of Celsius last year and is no longer involved with the company.

Yuji Naka likely won't face prison time over his insider trading. Tokyo judge Madoka Hiruta has given the Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator a suspended 2.5-year prison sentence, deferred for four years, as well as two fines worth the equivalent of $1.1 million and $14,000. Naka's actions hurt the "fairness and soundness" of the stock market while wounding investors' trust, Hirtua says.

Naka pleaded guilty in March to violating Japan's Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. While working at Square Enix, he bought shares in the game studio Aiming before its partnership with on Dragon Quest Tact became public knowledge. He made about $150,000 in profit after selling his shares. The developer also faced insider trading charges for buying shares in Ateam, the developer of the short-lived mobile battle royale game Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier.

Two other former workers, Taisuke Sasaki and Fumiaki Suzuki, were also arrested for buying Aiming shares. Square Enix previously said it was cooperating with investigators and had instituted safeguards to prevent insider trading.

This kind of activity isn't new in the technology space. It's rare in the gaming world, however. and surprising when it involves a successful developer like Naka. While this won't necessarily hurt the Sonic franchise, it certainly doesn't help his reputation.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) plans to perform an in-depth probe into Adobe’s acquisition of Figma, the agency announced today (viaThe Wall Street Journal). Citing concerns about “a substantial lessening of competition” for screen design software, it plans to move into a “phase two” investigation. However, it’s giving the companies five business days to “offer legally binding proposals” to address the concerns; if their response doesn’t satisfy the CMA, the probe will begin. Adobe announced its plans last year to buy its smaller rival for $20 billion.

“The CMA found that Figma has established a substantial share of the market for screen design software and that Adobe has been continuously investing in and competing in this segment,” the UK agency, which recently rejected Microsoft’s proposed $75 billion purchase of Activision, wrote today. “The CMA found that competition between Figma and Adobe has driven investment in updating and developing screen design software, and this important rivalry could be lost if the deal goes ahead.” It described Figma as “an emerging competitive threat” to the Photoshop maker, expressing concerns about the reduced innovation that could come from Adobe scooping up an upstart competitor. The agency said it’s concerned the acquisition could lead to higher costs and fewer / less innovative products.

Adobe’s purchase of San Francisco-based Figma, founded in 2012, would be the largest-ever acquisition for the 41-year-old design behemoth. In Sigma’s 11 years on the market, it has established itself as a popular tool for vector-based design. The cloud-based software specializes in remote collaboration and is a direct competitor to Adobe’s XD and Illustrator products. At the time of the acquisition, Adobe said it wanted to bring features from its Creative Cloud suite into the collaborative software while incorporating more of Figma’s team-focused features into its core products — predictably framing it as a win-win for customers. The company added it was “deeply committed” to keeping Figma an independent company while insisting there was “no plan” to change its pricing — including its free tier.

“We’re worried this deal could stifle innovation and lead to higher costs for companies that rely on Figma and Adobe’s digital tools — as they cease to compete to provide customers with new and better products,” said Sorcha O’Carroll, the CMA’s Senior Mergers Director. “Unless Adobe can put forward viable solutions to our concerns in the coming days, we will move to a more in-depth investigation.”

Lordstown Motors is having an eventful day, to say the least. The Ohio-based EV startup has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in hopes of finding a buyer and is suing its investment partner, Foxconn Technology, for breach of contract and fraud. In its suit, Lordstown claims Foxconn's actions "had the intended effect of destroying the business of an American startup."

Foxconn, primarily known for assembling Apple's iPhones, bought Lordstown's Ohio factory in late 2021 (around when General Motors jumped ship) and a year later agreed to invest another $170 million through the purchase of common shares and newly created preferred shares. But, in April, Foxconn threatened to terminate the deal, claiming that Lordstown's stock dropping below $1 per share for 30 trading days in a row represented a breach in their agreement. The car manufacturer said the claims had no merit and accused Foxconn of acting in "bad faith" to get control of the factory and its workers without intending to support Endurance, its first pickup EV. 

The decision to declare Bankruptcy doesn't exactly come as a surprise — in May, Lordstown said production would likely stop "in the near future" and that the company would file if its deal with Foxconn didn't proceed. Lordstown also reported a $171.1 million loss for 2023's first quarter. 

Endurance has also faced continual problems from production to the final product. Even after Foxconn bought the factory, Lordstown failed to meet its forecasted vehicle production numbers for 2022, cutting it from 500 to 50 trucks. Then came an underperformance in miles, with the Environmental Protection Agency recently rating the pickup's range as just 174 miles versus its promised 250. Its competitors, the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Rivian R1T, can go 240 and 289 miles, respectively. 

Gannett, a news publisher accused of monopolistic behavior, is suing Google for monopolistic behavior. It’s the latest in a string of lawsuits against the search giant, and it repeats many of the arguments made by the Department of Justice in its second lawsuit against Google, filed earlier this year. Gannett is the US’ largest news publisher. “Google has monopolized market trading to their advantage and at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else,” Gannett CEO Mike Reed said toCNBC. “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the online economy. Without free and fair competition for digital ad space, publishers cannot invest in their newsrooms.”

Gannett, which owns USA Today and various local papers, says Google has overly broad control over the online ad business, leading to diminished ad spending despite growing online readership. The crux of the complaint is that Google owns the largest ad exchange and ad server — both acquired rather than built organically — and that arrangement has led to diminished industry revenue.

“Content providers, including hundreds of our local news outlets, create enormous value but see none of the financial upside because Google, as middleman, has monopolized the markets for important software and technology products that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell ad space,” Gannett CEO Mike Reed wrote today. “Google trades on that conflict of interest to its advantage and at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else. Our lawsuit details more than a dozen significantly anticompetitive and deceptive acts by Google, starting as early as 2009 and persisting to present day.”

In a statement to Engadget, Google insisted that its services are popular because they’re the best — not due to a lack of competition. “These claims are simply wrong. Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetize — in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager,” VP of Google Ads Dan Taylor said. “And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue. We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.” Google says the average large publisher will use six different platforms to sell ads on its websites, while advertisers and media agencies will use over three platforms to buy ads. The search giant describes its ad tech fees as transparent and consistent with industry rates.

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However, Gannett’s complaints are similar to those of the DOJ, which filed a suit in January (alongside eight states) to break up Google’s advertising business. “Google’s anticompetitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced key competitors to abandon the market for ad tech tools, dissuaded potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google’s few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged,” the Justice Department alleged at the time. It was the DOJ’s second lawsuit against Google, following one filed in 2020 under former Attorney General Bill Barr, accusing the company of having a monopoly over search and search-related advertising.

Gannett’s and the DOJ’s most recent lawsuits claim Google has stifled competition in the space through acquisitions. “Whenever Google’s customers and competitors responded with innovation that threatened Google’s stranglehold over any one of these ad tech tools, Google’s anticompetitive response has been swift and effective,” the DOJ said.

Gannett is no stranger to monopolistic accusations. Although the company is over 116 years old, it was acquired by New Media Investment Group and merged with GateHouse Media (taking on the Gannett brand) in 2019. Since the merger, Gannett has laid off over half its workforce and shut down numerous local news outlets. In the period immediately following the acquisition, Gannett “owned 261 daily and 302 weekly newspapers,” according toNieman Lab. “By the end of 2022, those totals were 217 daily and 175 weekly newspapers,” although some were due to selling papers to local buyers. In addition, the company went from about 25,000 employees at the time of the acquisition to 11,200 in its most recent filing report.

Vodafone has announced its intentions to merge with Three, pulling together the UK’s two remaining standalone mobile networks. The move comes in a market that has seen major consolidations in recent years between Virgin Media's merger with O2 and BT Group's purchase of EE. If regulators approve the deal, Vodafone and Three's new company will become the largest mobile phone operator in the UK, with an estimated 27 million customers. 

"Three UK and Vodafone UK currently lack the necessary scale on their own to earn their cost of capital. This has long been a challenge for Three UK's ability to invest and compete," (Three Owner) CK Hutchinson Group Co-Managing Director Canning Fok said in a statement. "Together, we will have the scale needed to deliver a best-in-class 5G network for the UK, transforming mobile services for our customers and opening up new opportunities for businesses across the length and breadth of the UK." Vodafone will own 51 percent of the company, while CK Hutchinson controls the rest. 

The merger with Vodafone isn't the first time Three has tried to couple up with a competitor. In 2015, its parent company announced plans to buy O2 for £10.25 billion ($12.96 billion), but the European Commission and Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the purchase over concerns of "reduced competition" and "higher prices." However, O2 was able to merge with Virgin Media in 2021 after the CMA determined that similar concerns were unfounded. Vodafone and Three are attempting to sweeten the latest deal with a promise to invest £11 billion ($13.9 billion) across ten years in the UK's 5G infrastructure, in line with the government's targets.