LawFuel – Obstacles to Microsoft’s purchase of Yahoo could delay the deal by a year, experts say.
Apart from a US Department of Justice review, there are a range of delaying agencies including the Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission that can create considerable delays.
Among the issues that face investigation are antitrust questions about the merger, particlarly focused upon privacy issues. Although there have been moves by major search engines like Google to develop and deploy new privacy features, this is a key issue in the proposed deal. Specifically, the question is whether the deal will substantially affect search privacy.
There are also question relating to email, such as whether there will be a bundling of Yahoo’s services with Microsoft’s software.
The European Commission, which has flexed its muscles with Microsoft before, will be no ‘push over’ when it comes to dealing with these and other legal issues, experts say. However, the feeling is that there are no deal killers in the legal issues that the merger needs to overcome.
