The losses are coming fast and furious for the FTC, which has been pulling out all the stops to do anything it can to try to prevent Microsoft from closing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Now, one final loss means the deal can likely close before its appeal actually takes place.
- First, the FTC failed to win an injunction to stop the acquisition after it presented a lengthy case to a judge.
- Then, the FTC filed an emergency motion to stay the deal after the first loss, which it also lost.
- Finally, late on Friday, the FTC lost another attempt to stop the deal before appeal, this time via the 9th Circuit Court.
What this means is that Microsoft is now free to close The Activision Blizzard deal, likely as soon as next week, provided it can sort out their final bit of business with the UK’s CMA, which previously rejected the acquisition on cloud gaming-based grounds.
The FTC has not lost its actual appeal, but the fact that the deal can essentially happen now means that any future action that could be taken would be far less relevant than blocking it now, as if it was granted these injunctions, it might have actually killed the deal. Now, that’s almost certainly not going to happen.
The FTC’s resounding loss in court and extremely fast follow-up rejections have caused the overall effectiveness of the agency to come into question. At least in this specific case, no matter what your opinion of the industry’s consolidation that would occur through the deal, it was easy to see the FTC was presenting an extremely weak case. It is not a good sign when the judge you’re arguing before has to actively remind you that you’re supposed to be arguing for consumers, not one specific company, Sony.
Closing seems likely to happen soon. Activision is already in the process of being delisted from the stock exchange ahead of acquisition. Microsoft is taking victory laps. The UK CMA thing is almost certainly going to work itself out as the lone remaining obstacle, and not a very big one at that.
It always seemed likely that this deal would go through, especially after dozens and dozens of countries approved it without issue and most other big tech companies seemed to have no issue with it, with gaming industry giants like Valve and Nintendo shrugging at the possibility that Microsoft would own Activision Blizzard. This left Sony as essentially the lone crusader, but it was often giving talking points directly to regulatory agencies in a way that was too obviously defending its own specific interests. But its key point, that Microsoft could take away Call of Duty from PlayStation, was never convincing given the economics of the situation and Microsoft’s decade-long deals it was offering (that Sony was rejecting). Emails revealed Sony’s Jim Ryan himself did not actually believe COD would leave the platform, revealing it as a move to stop the deal rather than an actual concern.
The ink is not dry but after this latest loss, this is as close to a sure thing as we’re going to get. It’s likely this ends for good next week, minus any UK obfuscation.
Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Read the full article here
