https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/24/uk-probes-amazon-and-microsoft-over-ai-partnerships-with-mistral-anthropic-and-inflection/

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching preliminary enquiries into whether the close-knit tie-ups and hiring practices involving Microsoft, Amazon and a trio of AI startups falls within the scope of its merger rules — and whether the arrangements could impact competition in the U.K. market.

The announcement comes amid growing scrutiny of Big Tech’s approach to M&A in the world of AI, where critics argue that the so-called “quasi-merger” has emerged as flavor of the day as a means of bypassing regulatory oversight. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched its own enquiries into the various investments made by Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft into emerging AI companies, to establish whether the “partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition.”