Microsoft acquisition of LinkedIn

For Microsoft, CRA economists advised on the $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in Europe and the US. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared the transaction and the EC cleared the deal subject to conditions to address potential concerns in “professional social networking” (PSN). Our analysis considered the parties’ ability and incentive to foreclose third-party suppliers of CRM solutions by restricting the availability of LinkedIn’s (sales intelligence) products, or tying/bundling them with Microsoft’s productivity assets. The CRA team was led by Cristina Caffarra and included Professor Fiona Scott Morton in the US, and Lars Wiethaus, Matthew Bennett, and Alessandro Kadner-Graziano in Europe.