The price is about double the expected value of Skype if it had gone ahead with its planned initial public offering, leaving investors puzzled over how Microsoft will make the deal pay for itself.
Could it have gone ahead if the Electoral Commission had said that it would not be possible to properly regulate spending on the election campaign and referendum?
Baird, if it had gone ahead, would have added a further 13.5 days and potentially created hundreds of jobs building the site and more permanent ones after it was completed.
"This deal, if it had gone ahead, would have meant the UK was complicit in the same system that is threatening to execute juveniles Ali al-Nimr and Dawoud al-Marhoon for the 'crime' of protesting.
And this, obviously, is the craziest part of the whole decision: New Jersey still needs more trains running into New York City, so it will have to help build and pay for these tunnels, but it will forego years' worth of economic benefits, and taxpayers will most likely end up paying higher borrowing rates and higher prices than if it had gone ahead with ARC in 2010.The whole thing is a fiasco.
In spite of last-minute efforts to block the auction, it had gone ahead under pressure from an estate that has been tangled and embattled since the day Brown died, leaving behind multiple wives and girlfriends, children that he acknowledged and some he did not, grandchildren, business managers and contentious trustees.
If it had gone ahead, Morgan Grenfell's partners could be held more directly accountable by the fund's investors.
Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said if it had gone ahead it would have had a negative impact on nearby properties and views of the landscape.
Ms Parry said: "The cost of the festival is the cost of what it would have been should it have gone ahead, which is around £350,000.
