If Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are both based in the USA, how does the UK have standing to block the merger? Per this story from the BBC or Bloomberg The UK Competition and Markets Authority has apparently decided to block the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. The story notes: &quot;To go through, the deal has to be approved by regulatory bodies in the UK, United States and European Union.&quot; From Wikipedia: &quot;Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California.&quot; &quot;Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington.&quot; Both noted as &quot;American&quot; and both noted as being based out of American states, rather than registered abroad. Question: If both companies are American and based in American locations, then why does the UK or the EU have any ability to block such a merger? I could see saying &quot;those companies are no longer allowed to sell their combined products in those locations&quot;, which might be equivalent, yet not blocking the actual merger itself.
The basis is set out in the Final Report of the Microsoft / Activision Blizzard Merger Inquiry, in particular Chapters 1 (p24) and 3 (p35-36). The role and powers of the Competition and Markets Authority are set out in the Enterprise Act 2002, as amended in 2013 when it replaced the Competition Commission (with predecessor bodies going back to 1949). The overall procedure is pretty complex, but the main point is that a CMA investigation will happen whenever there is a &quot;relevant merger situation&quot;, and the result of that may be an order telling the companies what to do. It could stop them from merging, or impose various conditions about the conduct of business - see Schedule 8 for a long list of possibilities. Their jurisdiction over this anticipated &quot;relevant merger situation&quot; is on the basis that The two enterprises, namely Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, would cease to be distinct enterprises (s.23(1)(a)) because they would be brought under common ownership or control (s.26). The acquired company, Activision Blizzard, has a UK turnover of more than £70m (s.23(1)(b)), in fact £716m in FY2021. The report dedicates some words in Chapter 3 to proving that Microsoft and Activision are both businesses, just in case anybody was in doubt about that. In essence, the CMA has these powers because a lot of people in the UK play World of Warcraft (etc.) and there could be a &quot;substantial lessening of competition&quot; in the console gaming market as a result of the acquisition. If Activision had fewer UK customers then the £70m threshold would not be reached. While the investigation overall is addressed to &quot;Microsoft&quot; and &quot;Activision Blizzard&quot; without analyzing the precise structure of the enterprises, any final order from the CMA would be addressed to more specific entities - perhaps Microsoft Ltd. in the UK as well as its American parent, among others. In other cases, orders have been similarly directed to various non-UK companies as well as domestic ones. But the CMA does not require a company to be UK-registered in order to exercise power over it. The relevant statutory condition is about how the enterprise (of whatever kind, wherever incorporated, however structured) does business in the UK. Other countries' equivalent bodies do basically the same thing, and can similarly impose conditions on foreign companies. The structure and safeguards in the law mean that the CMA cannot act totally capriciously, or impose conditions that go beyond the scope of its remit (competition in the UK market). So even though Schedule 8 seems very broad on its face, it actually is more limited.
Websites are not ships that can choose a flag of convenience to govern which country's laws govern them. Generally speaking an analysis of which jurisdiction's law applies (which is strictly speaking a "choice of law" question as much as it is a jurisdiction question) isn't undertaken on a website by website, or business by business basis. Instead, jurisdiction and choice of law are evaluated on a claim by claim basis. The owners of a website may be subject to some claims in India, to some in Bhutan, and to others in the United States, depending upon the claim. Without knowing who is trying to sue for what, you can't know. Generally speaking, a business that operates in multiple jurisdictions, like a website, will be subject to the laws of all of the jurisdictions in which it does business in regard to claims with a connection to those jurisdictions. Of course, as a practical matter, only claims that can be enforced against the owners of the website are relevant, which usually means that only claims brought where the owners reside or own assets are relevant. If the website owners own property or have amounts payable to them in India, there is a very good chance that India can, as a practical matter, assert jurisdiction over them. And, it is likely, as a practical matter, that Saudi Arabia or China would not be able to assert jurisdiction over them in a meaningful way. The fact that businesses can be conducted through legal entities further complicates the analysis. But, at any rate, the place to begin is to realize that the question "Under which country's jurisdiction does a website fall?" is basically a category error. You need to ask "Under which country's jurisdiction does a website fall when it is sued or prosecuted for X kind of matter by someone who lives in Y?" So, really, this one question is actually dozens or hundreds of questions that each have to be analyzed individually.
You asked about other jurisdictions. As you'll probably be aware (from cases like EU vs Microsoft and EU vs Google) European countries and culture tend to have much stronger protection laws for consumer and employee rights than the US does. In the UK you could make a strong case, although such cases are not often undertaken. The current legislation is Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, but the unfair contract terms clause goes back to at least the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. Basically the law protects a person in a situation where disparity of size and bargaining power have led to unfair terms in a contract (typically a large company offering "take it or leave it" standard terms) - and specifically if they create a significant disparity in the parties rights and obligations. In such a situation the company which drafted the terms alleged to be unfair must show they are reasonable. A list of common terms likely to be seen as unfair is provided. (Employment terms are covered by other laws but also aim to prevent abuses due to inequality of contracting power) A company which sold a product like Windows 7/8/8.1 and then later said "we are changing our terms of support and forcing you to upgrade" (especially to a different product the user may not want, or a product that is maintained in a different way),would almost certainly be at substantial risk of falling foul of this. It wouldn't matter if it was done by not providing the support/patches as originally implied (by custom or normal expectation) or as agreed in an explicit statement of support life cycle, or by saying "we have the right under the contract to do this", or by forcing what is essentially a change of product to get the updates. It also wouldnt matter how big they are, nor whether or not the user had already agreed "because I felt I had no choice". The law is there specifically to protect against abuses like this, so it is drafted to catch companies who try to find "wriggle room".
I know the OP is asking about America, but its also worth knowing about other countries. This is legal if both subscriber and subscription are within the EU. There was also a court case about this. In another case in 2014 the pub lost, but that seems to have been because the decoder was only licensed for domestic use. These cases were for satellite decoders rather than Internet streaming, but the legal issues would be the same. Both these cases involved British pubs, so obviously this law doesn't apply to them since Brexit.
Is it actually necessary for businesses (such as a Small Town News USA Inc) that do not reside in EU to care about GDPR? Only if they offer goods/services to or monitor behavior of people in the EU (Art. 3(2)). Note that: having a commerce-oriented website that is accessible to EU residents does not by itself constitute offering goods or services in the EU. Rather, a business must show intent to draw EU customers, for example, by using a local language or currency. If it is then how (and by whom) would compliance be audited and/or enforced? Supervisory Authorities will care of it.
A company does not cease to exist simply because it goes bankrupt. The company may wind down its operations, but it may just go through a process of restructuring its debts. If the company is merely restructuring, the bankruptcy would not probably not have much effect on its ownership of intellectual property such as copyright and trademark rights. So it would retain those interests in the video game, and the company making the sequel would need to obtain licenses from the original company. If the original company is going through bankruptcy in anticipation of shutting down completely, you can expect it to sell off all its assets, which would include its copyright and trademark interests in the game. In that case, the company making the sequel could either attempt to purchase those rights itself, or it would need to obtain a license from whoever does buy those rights.
Maybe, but probably not The geographic location of the organisation is immaterial: under Article 3.2: This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to: ... (b) the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union. Posts anyone (not just EU citizens) make to Reddit (or anywhere else) while they are physically located in the EU or UK engage the GDPR. Pushift.io is therefore captured by the GDPR and any denial of that is just plain wrong. Given the denial, it is likely right out of the gate that they are non-complient. For example, they are unlikely to provided the required information under Article 14. More importantly, it seems that they have not determined the lawful basis for processing the data under Article 6 - they can possibly rely on the public interest basis (preserving deleted publication is arguably a public interest) or a legitimate interest but that requires a balancing of their interest against the data subject's. That said, the right to be forgotten is not absolute, the reasons that might be applicable here are: The data is being used to exercise the right of freedom of expression and information. The data is being used to perform a task that is being carried out in the public interest or when exercising an organization’s official authority. The data represents important information that serves the public interest, scientific research, historical research, or statistical purposes and where erasure of the data would likely to impair or halt progress towards the achievement that was the goal of the processing.
Most games have a TOS to playing that include provisions such as sales of in game items through out of game currencies (i.e. real world money changes hands for digital product or account). I believe Pokemon does have this as part of the TOS which could get you and potential customers banned from competition and possibly the modern online trade features, but am unable to look at the current TOS to verify. It should not be hard to find such a document and read for yourself.