LONDON, Aug 23 Reuters The longrunning battle between Microsoft and Britain over the Activision Blizzard deal took another twist on Tuesday, raising more questions than answers about the country39;s approach to deals in the postBrexit era.

Britain39;s Competition and Markets Authority CMA has been locked in a dispute with the U.S. software giant over its 69 billion bid to buy the Call of Duty maker since it opposed the takeover in April.

It had said in July, just minutes after the U.S. regulator failed in its own effort to stop the takeover in court, that it was willing to look again at the case when Microsoft returned with a detailed and complex proposal.

On Tuesday it said it would stick to its original decision to block it.

But it will look at a separate restructured deal put forward by Microsoft, in which Activision would divest its cloud streaming rights to a third party France39;s Ubisoft Entertainment  excluding in the European Union.

The carveout is designed to not upset a deal with Brussels for Microsoft to license content to rival cloud services.

EU antitrust regulators said in response they would now look at whether the new terms would affect the concessions they had already agreed with the U.S. company.

Ronan Scanlan, a competition lawyer at Arthur Cox in Dublin, who previously worked for the CMA, said no one was wellserved by the uncertainty and confusion in Britain.

Some may say that the CMA has bent over backwards to accommodate Microsoft, others…