United Kingdom: Cancelled investigation on anticipated acquisition of Serato Audio Research Limited by AlphaTheta Corporation

On 22 July 2024, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it had cancelled its investigation into the anticipated acquisition of Serato Audio Research Limited by AlphaTheta Corporation. In particular, the CMA cancelled its Phase 2 merger investigation following AlphaTheta and Serato's announcement that they had abandoned their proposed deal after the New Zealand Commerce Commission declined authorisation of the merger, a necessary condition for the deal. The CMA had expressed several concerns regarding the merger's potential impact, such as the horizontal unilateral effects, where the merged entity might have dominated the DJ software market, thereby reducing competition. Furthermore, there was potential foreclosure of DJ hardware rivals, where ATC could have leveraged its software market position to harm hardware competitors. Finally, there were non-horizontal effects, such as ATC accessing commercially sensitive information from competitors, reducing innovation and competition.