LONDON — E-commerce giant Amazon’s multibillion-dollar investment in the U.S. artificial intelligence firm Anthropic is formally being investigated by a U.K. competition regulator. The Competition and Markets Authority said Thursday that it has begun a “Phase 1” investigation into Amazon’s investment and partnership with Anthropic to assess whether the deal has resulted in a relevant merger situation that may harm competition in the U.K. Following initial scrutiny into the Amazon-Anthropic partnership, the CMA now has “sufficient information” in relation to the tie-up to begin a formal probe, the regulator said in a notice on its website. The CMA now has up to 40 working days to decide whether the transaction could harm competition and should therefore be scrutinized further in an in-depth “Phase 2” investigation. Amazon completed in March a $4 billion investment in Anthropic. The deal consisted of an initial $1.25 billion equity stake in September, followed by a further $2.75 billion…
