Injunction Denied – Microsoft defeats the FTC in its fight to buy Activision

Microsoft’s battle against the FTC is over – Microsoft’s one step closer to acquiring Activision Blizzard

Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard is running close to its July 18th deadline, after which Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will need to settle on new terms or abandon their acquisition efforts. 

Thanks to Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of California, Microsoft are now one step closer to acquiring Activision Blizzard, as the Judge has denied the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have delayed proceedings past Microsoft’s July 18th deadline.

Below is what Judge Corley had to say about the acquisition and the FTC’s planned injunction.

     Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services. This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted—perhaps even terminated—pending resolution of the FTC administrative action. For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED. 

Shifting Focus

Now that the FTC’s preliminary injection has failed, Microsoft’s focus has now shifted to the UK, as the UK’s Competition and Market’s Authority (CMA) are the only group who are firmly standing in the way of Microsoft’s planned acquisition. 

Microsoft and the CMA have now agreed to a “stay of litigation” and have started talks that could result in the CMA allowing Microsoft’s acquisition. These talks could result in new concessions from Microsoft, concessions that would allow the CMA to allow the acquisition. 

The Competition and Market’s Authority in their decision to block Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard has received a lot of backlash from the British government, with many MPs questioning whether or not the UK was still “open for business”. Microsoft has also reportedly considered extreme options like withdrawing Activision Blizzard from the UK, bypassing the UK’s block on the acquisition.

Microsoft now has less than a week to close their acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which means that we should be hearing a lot of new information about the deal over the next few days.  

You can join the discussion on Microsoft defeating the FTC’s attempt to block their Activision Blizzard acquisition on the OC3D Forums.