FTC will try to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard
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The Federal Trade Commission is set to file for an injunction seeking to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
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The FTC had already sued to block the $68.7 billion acquisition, choosing to bring the case before its internal administrative law judge.
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By filing for an injunction, the FTC is seeking to stop the acquisition from going through before the deal’s July 18 deadline.
The Federal Trade Commission is set to file for an injunction on Monday seeking to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard , a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
By filing for an injunction, the FTC is seeking to stop the acquisition from going through before the deal’s July 18 deadline.
The FTC had already sued to block the $68.7 billion acquisition, choosing to bring the case before its internal administrative law judge. Through that trial-like process, the ALJ would make an initial decision that could be appealed to the full commission for a vote. After that, Microsoft could appeal to a federal court should the decision not go its way. The case is set to go before the ALJ in August.
An appeal of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority’s decision to block the merger is also scheduled to take place this summer shortly after the acquisition deadline.
“We welcome the opportunity to present our case in federal court,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said. “We believe accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the market.”
Shares of Microsoft and Activision were roughly flat Monday afternoon.
The antitrust concerns center on cloud gaming, not the consoles. The UK regulator basically said that it's unlikely that Microsoft would profit from making CoD an Xbox exclusive, but it would be extremely beneficial and provide a substantial benefit to make it exclusive to their cloud gaming platform.
Because the current cloud gaming market isn't massive this basically meant that Microsoft would be the only choice for most consumers and could stifle growth and innovation in the industry, which would negatively affect UK consumers. Microsoft proposed that they have ten years where they are forced to put games on specific competing platforms. But the problem with that is they wouldn't need to include any new entrants to the market and they got to dictate the method of sale. This would obviously prevent new entries to the market (who's gonna pay for the cloud gaming service that doesn't have CoD, when you could go to one that does) and would prevent someone from innovating the purchase method (say they wanted to introduce a subscription that gets you access to all games on the platform, they would be unable to include CoD in that). And theh generally don't like things like this because after 10 years it's just going to become an exclusive anyway, so it doesn't ultimately correct the issue.
I'd recommend you read the report on it, it's very thorough.