Microsoft has also said that it intends to take legal action against the FTC in the event that it attempts to stop the purchase. FTC staff is wrapping up its investigation and is expected to make a recommendation soon. The FTC commissioners would then vote on whether to file a case. -Bloomberg’s Source This is similar with what Lulu Cheng Meservey, Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs and Chief Communication Officer of Activision-Blizzard, recently said on Twitter on the purchase. Bloomberg Intelligence antitrust analyst Jennifer Rie said it wouldn’t surprise her if the FTC files a lawsuit seeking to block the deal, but noted that a court fight would be hard for enforcers to win and Microsoft could prevail — though a legal battle could stretch beyond the deal’s end date. Microsoft has said it expects to close the transaction by June 30.” The purchase might also be cancelled by Microsoft if the FTC files a complaint. Microsoft took that action in 1995 when the US government filed a lawsuit to stop its purchase of accounting software firm Intuit Inc. Microsoft said it didn’t want to deal with a protracted court fight at the time. Microsoft’s greatest hope of getting the Biden administration to approve the acquisition of Activision is to convince them to accept a settlement whereby it promises not to withhold its best-selling games from competitors. Although the FTC is approaching mergers aggressively, particularly in the technology and digital markets, it has not yet made clear whether it intends to file a lawsuit to stop the transaction. The FTC is probably going to challenge the deal, as we reported the previous week. The availability of the well-known Call of Duty game series on Sony’s PlayStation console and the possibility that the merger would give Microsoft a monopoly position in the still-small but rapidly growing market for cloud gaming services are both issues that European and UK antitrust bodies have raised. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft pulls this one out.
