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Enforcement or court caseFrontierUKConfirmed

CMA treats Microsoft’s hiring of Inflection staff as a merger, then clears it

See how this story connects

Source: Competition and Markets AuthorityAlso reported by The Register

The Competition and Markets Authority cleared Microsoft’s hiring of former Inflection AI staff and its associated arrangements with Inflection on 4 September 2024, after a Phase 1 inquiry opened on 16 July. The CMA found that the March 2024 hires, which included co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan, created a relevant merger situation. It cleared the deal because Inflection had a very small UK chatbot share and was not a material competitive constraint.

Why it matters

Large firms hiring a start-up’s team and licensing its technology learned that the UK can review such ‘acqui-hires’ under merger law even when no shares change hands.

When
4 Sep 2024
ID
WTA-N-2024-0164
Who
Competition and Markets Authority, Microsoft, Inflection AI; Mustafa Suleyman
Authority
Competition and Markets Authority
Target
Microsoft
Action
merger cleared
Status
closed · Enforcement ledger

Summary by wheresthe.ai, from Competition and Markets Authority and the reporting credited above. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.

Read the original at Competition and Markets Authority

Source copy: download the page as saved on 18 Oct 2026 (PDF). Documents the source offers: document 1 (PDF), document 2 (PDF), document 3 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: What happened nextCMA finds Amazon’s $4bn Anthropic partnership falls outside UK merger rules

Cite this story

WTA-N-2024-0164: “CMA treats Microsoft’s hiring of Inflection staff as a merger, then clears it.” wheresthe.ai, 4 Sep 2024. https://wheresthe.ai/d/gb-cma-clears-microsoft-inflection-2024-09/ (source: Competition and Markets Authority).

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