The European Commission has cleared the 55 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, marking a major regulatory milestone for what would become the largest leveraged buyout in history.
The executive body approved the acquisition under the EU Merger Regulation, concluding that the transaction "would not raise competition concerns, given its limited impact on competition in the markets where the companies are active." The review was conducted under the standard merger procedure, which evaluates whether a deal can be expected to significantly impede effective competition in the EU.
The consortium offering to acquire EA includes PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, supported by over $20 billion in debt financing from JPMorgan. EA shareholders have already approved the acquisition, which now moves through regulatory reviews across multiple jurisdictions. When the deal was first announced in September 2025, EA moved quickly to reassure its community. The company said it would "maintain creative control" and "creative freedom" under the PIF-led consortium. "The Consortium believes in our vision, our leadership and our focus on creating games, stories, and content that reflect a range of experiences and delivering them to our global player community," EA said at the time.
The EU's unconditional approval removes one of the largest remaining hurdles to the deal's completion. Under EU merger law, the Commission assesses whether proposed mergers can be expected to significantly impede effective competition. If they do not, they are approved unconditionally. If they do, and no commitments suitable to remove the impediment are proposed, problematic mergers must be prohibited.
While the EU cleared the deal on competition grounds, labour advocates have raised separate concerns about the acquisition's potential impact on workers. Last October, Communication Workers of America president Claude Cummings Jr. called for a comprehensive review of the buyout in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS). Cummings urged regulators to take "all necessary steps to prevent foreign and private equity interests from destabilising the American video game industry." Earlier this year, US lawmakers echoed those concerns, asking the FTC to "thoroughly" review the acquisition given its scale and EA's "current dominance over the domestic video game labour market."
The EU approval is one piece of a broader regulatory puzzle. The deal still faces scrutiny from other jurisdictions, including the United States, where the FTC and CFIUS reviews are ongoing. Given the involvement of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, national security and foreign investment concerns in multiple countries could shape the final terms. For EA, the clock is now ticking on remaining approvals. The publisher's portfolio includes franchises like FIFA, Battlefield, Apex Legends, and The Sims, making it one of the largest game companies in the world by revenue.
The acquisition comes at a turbulent time for the games industry, with ongoing layoffs, studio closures, and consolidation across the sector. Whether the PIF-led consortium can deliver on its promise of creative independence while managing $20 billion in debt will be a defining question for EA's next chapter.
