OpenAI has been in the news a lot this month. From the ousting of CEO Sam Altman to rumors that he had joined Microsoft, all the way back to his position at OpenAI a couple of weeks ago. All of these moves have gotten the attention of UK regulators and they now want to examine the relationship.
In this press release the UK mentions it will take a look at the relationship to see if either company has crossed the 50 percent threshold which could result in the relationship being called a merger.
There have recently been a number of developments in the governance of OpenAI, some of which involved Microsoft. In light of these developments, the CMA is now issuing an ITC to determine whether the Microsoft / OpenAI partnership, including recent developments, has resulted in a relevant merger situation and, if so, the potential impact on competition.
The CMA will review whether the partnership has resulted in an acquisition of control – that is, where it results in one party having material influence, de facto control or more than 50% of the voting rights over another entity – or change in the nature of control by one entity over another.
Microsoft currently leverages OpenAI for its Copilot and DALL-E generative AI services. It’s believed that once Microsoft got a non-voting seat on the board recently the regulatory body became more interested.
