Hearing in Microsoft's appeal against CMA to start on July 24

Hearings in Microsoft's appeal of the CMA's decision to block its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the UK will start on July 24.

Marcus Smith, president of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, announced yesterday that the hearing may span stretch two weeks, VGC reported.

"The hearing of the substance of this application will take place in the fortnight commencing July 24, so the weeks commencing the 24th and 31st of July," he said.

"I’m not expecting it to take the whole of those ten days but I would like the parties to err on the side of longer rather than shorter oral submissions. It seems to me that that is an excess that we can afford."

As reported by Eurogamer, Microsoft had requested a four-day hearing, with the CAT suggesting that it'll likely be six days.

"There is a tendency – and it’s very much driven by the Tribunal rather than the parties – to cut submissions to shorter than they perhaps ought to be," Smith continued. "I want to do the reverse in this case. I want to have the parties understand that we will want to give them every opportunity to unpack the difficulties of this case in oral submissions and for us to have the time to do that."

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority announced it was blocking Microsoft's proposed acquisition of ABK on April 26, with the platform holder officially filing its appeal with the Competition Appeal Tribunal on May 24.

The CAT published a summary of Microsoft's appeal yesterday; the firm's arguments to the tribunal focus on five key points which we detailed in an article yesterday, lending more insight into how Microsoft hopes to overturn the decision.

And, as always, if you're a bit lost,you can read our extensive primer about the Microsoft-ABK case and what happens next.