챌린지
일반 읽기

Q

01

0:00/1:34

Microsoft’s 21-month battle to pull off its blockbuster purchase of gaming company Activision has been one of the M&A world’s most tortuous recent sagas.

번역 보기
pull off
(힘든 것을) 해내다, 성사시키다
tortuous
우여곡절이 많은

The struggle has served as a striking demonstration of the power of a legal, policy and influence machine which costs more than $1bn a year to run, and which has made Microsoft one of the most effective American companies in practising a new form of global corporate diplomacy to advance its interests.

번역 보기
demonstration
입증, 실증
machine
기구
diplomacy
사교 능력, 외교 수완

02

0:00/1:34

Getting the Activision deal across the line meant defeating a US government effort to block it in court, while also persuading UK regulators to allow an eleventh hour reworking of a transaction they had already decided to reject.

번역 보기
regulator
규제 기관
transaction
거래, 매매

It also involved winning over regulators in many other jurisdictions — including Brussels, where Microsoft was once deeply distrusted — at a time when acquisitions by big tech companies face significant opposition.

번역 보기
jurisdiction
관할권, 사법권
distrust
불신, 불신하다
acquisition
기업 인수

03

0:00/1:34

Under Brad Smith, who became its top legal officer in 2002 and also took on the title of president in 2015, Microsoft has long worked to present a more conciliatory face to regulators.

번역 보기
conciliatory
달래는, 회유하기 위한

Smith took over as the company’s general counsel at a low point, after the US Department of Justice came close to winning a court-ordered break-up. His rise brought a complete change in approach. While Microsoft had previously fought regulators aggressively, Smith argued for conciliation and preached the need to be more transparent with regulators.

번역 보기
at a low point
좋지 않은 부분에서
break-up
단체의 해체, 종말
preach
전하다, 역설하다

04

0:00/1:34

In another sign of increasing pressures on the company, Smith, usually the consummate diplomat, allowed himself a rare outburst in April after British regulators said they would block the Activision deal. The move was “bad for Britain”, and Microsoft’s “darkest day in our four decades” there, he told the BBC.

번역 보기
consummate
완벽한, 능숙한
outburst
감정의 폭발, 분출

Yet the software company was still able to persuade the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to reconsider, crafting a compromise that led to the agency clearing the deal while also enabling it to claim greater concessions from Microsoft than those won by other regulators. 

번역 보기
concession
양보, 양해, 인정

05

0:00/1:34

The software company has amassed “one of the largest armies of corporate diplomats that we’ve ever seen”, said Manas Chawla, a researcher who has studied the company. “They include policy officials working on everything from how to regulate artificial intelligence to protecting elections and tackling cyberwarfare against sovereign states,” he said.

번역 보기
amass
모으다, 축적하다
cyberwarfare
사이버 전쟁
sovereign state
주권국

Microsoft’s attempt to claim the moral high ground on issues like cyber security has grated with rivals, who claim the company uses its work with governments to distract attention from the role that vulnerabilities in its own software have played in causing the problems in the first place. Earlier this year, for instance, US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo was one of the several officials to have her email compromised after an online email account with Microsoft was hacked.

번역 보기
moral high ground
도덕적 우위, 도덕적 우월성
grate
짜증나게하다, 신경을 건드리다