Technology reporter
GettyThe UK competition Watchdog has terminated its investigation into a partnership between the manufacturer of Microsoft and Chatgpt, Openai.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was considering whether the world’s best -known artificial intelligence (AI) firm with Microsoft was changed after the upheaval, which saw his boss Sam Altman. Removed and then gone again,
The CMA concluded that, despite Microsoft invest billions of dollars in Openai and some of its AI products, the partnership is the same, so the merger of the UK is not subject to review under the regulations.
Foxglov, the campaigners of digital rights, said that it was shown that the CMA was “impure”.
The CMA opened the investigation in December 2023, when Microsoft pressured Openai to re -appoint Mr. Altman, he was dismissed.
“In view of Microsoft’s potentially important role in achieving Sam Altman’s re -appointment, CMA believed that an investigation would know that Microsoft had increased his control over Openai’s commercial policy,” Watchdog said.
But on Wednesday, it concluded that the Microsoft “impacts high levels of content” on Openai’s commercial policy without completely controlling.
The CMA Executive Director for Margers Joel Bamford said, “Because this change has not taken place, but its currently partnership does not qualify for a review under the merger control regime of the UK.” An article on LinkedIn.
But he said: “The conclusions of the CMA should not be read on the jurisdiction as the partnership is being given a clean bill of health on the concerns of potential competition, but the UK merger control regime should definitely work within the remit set by the Parliament.”
‘There is nothing to see here’
Critics say that this decision is related to the changed political environment which is now working in the CMA.
The government has directed the regulators of the country to suggest ways to stimulate economic development.
In January, the government removed The then CMA chair, Marcus Bokerink, because it was unhappy with his response to that call.
He was replaced on an interim basis by Amazon UK former boss Daug Gur.
Foxglov’s co-executive director Roja Carling said, “The CMA has been sitting on this decision for more than a year, yet being installed as a chair within a few weeks of Amazon Boss, it has decided that everything is exactly right, nothing is right here, nothing to look here.”
“It is a bad indication that Big Tech has successfully assured the Prime Minister to save our competition regulator and let Big Tech pursue the current generation of state-of-the-art technology-as he finalized,” he told the BBC.
When BBC News contacted the CMA for the response to these comments, he pointed us to Mr. Bamford’s LinkedIn Post, where he said: “We are not blind for the length of the time that this investigation has taken by this … we know the matters of speed for business trust and investment.”
He said that this investigation took so long, because the relationship between Microsoft and Openai was changing at that time.
In 2024, when Mr. Bokerink was the president, the CMA also issued similar “not qualified” decisions on other AI partnerships, including firms including Microsoft, Amazon and Google.
In April the same year, CMA Chief Executive Sara Cardel said that the body was “Real concerns” About a “interacted web” of the AI partnership among Big Tech firms.
But in set of instructions For the CMA released in February, the government said that it should prioritize “supporters-development and supporting intervention”.
Same month UK biases with America In a summit in Paris, not signing an agreement on AI at a summit.
American Vice President JD Vance told the delegates that a lot of regulation of AI could “kill a transformational industry as it is unloading”.
“CMA will take a low intervening approach to protect competition and merge control reviews, (but) This does not mean that the CMA approved every deal presented without any question,” Cloe Bircate said, said, competition lawyer in law firm Fraiths.
“CMA aims to help preserve competition in the markets to ensure that consumers get a proper deal,” he said.
Microsoft said in a statement: “Our Openai partnership and its continuous development promotes competition, innovation and responsible AI development, and we welcome CMA’s conclusions, after careful and prudent ideas of commercial realities, to close our investigation.”
Additional Reporting by Tom Singleton and Chris Vallence.
