Microsoft’s Latest Antitrust Scrutiny
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RTL ☛ Bloc's antitrust chief reports: EU further scrutinises Microsoft, OpenAI tie-up
But the European Commission concluded after a preliminary examination that the $13 billion tie-up did not mean the US tech giant had taken control of OpenAI.
"The key question was whether Microsoft had acquired control on a long-lasting basis over OpenAI. After a thorough review... we concluded that as such, it was not the case," said EU competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager.
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India Times ☛ AI deals between Microsoft and OpenAI, Google and Samsung, in EU crosshairs
Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI could face an EU antitrust investigation as regulators singled out their exclusivity clauses while Google's artificial intelligence deal with Samsung also triggered scrutiny.
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The Register UK ☛ Microsoft's $13B OpenAI deal faces fresh EU scrutiny
"We are closing this chapter, but the story is not over," Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of the commission, said in a speech on Friday in which she emphasized that Microsoft, OpenAI, and other key players in the ML space would remain under EU regulators' watchful gaze.
The commission was earlier concerned that, rather than perform traditional mergers that need to go through rounds of regulatory review and monopoly abuse checks, tech giants such as Microsoft were avoiding that scrutiny by instead entering tight partnerships that were near enough acquisitions in all but name.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership could face EU antitrust probe
European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager detailed the potential investigation in a speech today. She disclosed that officials had sent Microsoft and OpenAI a set of questions about “certain exclusivity clauses” in their partnership agreement. According to the Financial Times, the concern is that those clauses may harm competitors in the artificial intelligence market.