Microsoft's legal team now expects Britain's Competition and Markets Authority to formally oppose its long-planned $69 billion merger with Activision Blizzard.

That's according to "four people briefed on the matter" cited many paragraphs deep in a New York Times report about the direction of globalized antitrust regulation.

Microsoft expects the European Union's separate "in-depth" investigation into the deal to be more amenable to "potential remedies" that would allow it to go forward, according to the Times.

As those processes play out on the other side of the Atlantic, the US Federal Trade Commission seems content to limit its response to an administrative lawsuit rather than issuing an emergency injunction that could have stopped the deal from moving forward.

Advertisement The UK's Competition and Markets Authority first challenged Microsoft's proposed acquisition last July, before escalating to an in-depth "Phase 2" inquiry in September.

While the CMA decision technically couldn't be applied internationally, any move that prevented a merged Microsoft/Activision from operating in the UK would likely sour the deal in other jurisdictions.