Last December, the United States FTC (Federal Trade Commission) sued Microsoft over the Activision Blizzard acquisition. The lawsuit was to get the acquisition before an internal administrative law judge, but it has gone a step further. The lawsuit isn’t enough to outright halt the deal, it seems. A July 18 deadline is fast approaching, which would somewhat force the merger due to related contracts. To impede this, sources say the FTC plans to file an injunction that would bring it to a dead stop.
According to sources close to CNBC, this injunction hasn’t been filed yet but is coming in the near future. At the time of the lawsuit announcement, the FTC’s official reasoning was “the $69 billion deal, Microsoft’s largest ever and the largest ever in the video gaming industry, would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business.”
At the time of writing, the lawsuit still hasn’t been resolved. To build on that, it doesn’t begin until August. With that in mind, it stands to reason that an injunction is a necessary step in the FTC’s agenda to scrutinize the deal further.
CNBC includes a quote given by Microsoft:
“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.”
It remains to be seen if this new wrinkle will speed things up, but they also face opposition in the UK. Our original reporting of the lawsuit focused on Call of Duty potentially coming to Game Pass. However, Xbox has not made any statements regarding that possibility at any point since.
