At the same time the UK investigation into Microsoft was announced, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began a look into Amazon’s hiring of key executives, including the CEO, from AI startup Adept, and its plan to license some of Adept’s technology. And in early August, the CMA announced that it is launching an inquiry into Amazon’s relationship with Anthropic to determine whether it, too, warrants a full investigation. A CMA inquiry into Google’s relationship with Anthropic is also underway.

When is a merger not a merger?

In its summary of the Microsoft-Inflection decision, the CMA said that that it assessed the criteria for a relevant merger situation under the Enterprise Act 2022, noting, “There is no particular combination of assets that constitutes an enterprise. As set out in the CMA’s guidance, it may include a group of employees and their know-how where this enables a particular business activity to be continued.”

Furthermore, it said, “In addition to hiring the core former Inflection team, Microsoft also acquired additional assets, including access to Inflection IP. The combination of acquiring the core team together with these assets was key to the value of the Transaction, as it enabled the former Inflection team to continue the pre-Transaction Inflection roadmap for consumer-facing AI product development within Microsoft.