The FTC has restarted its fight against Microsoft’s Activision acquisition deal
It aims to resolve the matter “fully and expeditiously”
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It’s been revealed that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recommenced its fight againstMicrosoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision, after the trade watchdoglost its legal case attempting to halt the mergerback in July.
As BNN Bloombergreports, the matter will be handled via an in-house trial. However, with the acquisition deadline set for October 18, there are questions over whether the challenge would actually be able to block the deal before that date.
The FTC’s ‘Order Returning Matter to Adjudication’, which was released on the FTC’s website on Tuesday, September 26,states: “The Commission has determined that the public interest warrants that this matter be resolved fully and expeditiously. Therefore, the Commission is returning this matter to adjudication.
“The evidentiary hearing in this proceeding shall commence twenty-one days after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issues its opinion regarding the appeal of the district court decision on the requested preliminary injunction.”
Translated from legalese, this means that the FTC will attempt to re-open discussion as to the legitimacy of Microsoft’s acquisition plans - a case that will be made all the stronger should the Court of Appeals rule in its favor.
This development comes just one week after it was announced that the UK competition regulator, theCompetition and Markets Authority (CMA), had issued preliminary approvalof Microsoft’s updated Activision merger deal, which will seeMicrosoft sell the cloud streaming rightsfor current and new Activision games (released over the next 15 years) to Ubisoft if the deal goes through.
The CMA stated that the updated deal “makes important changes that substantially address the concerns it set out in relation to the original transaction”, as it was initiallyworried that the merger could harm competition in cloud gamingin the UK.
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In a statement released at the time,Activision Blizzard said: “The CMA’s preliminary approval is great news for our future with Microsoft. We’re pleased the CMA has responded positively to the solutions Microsoft has proposed, and we look forward to working with Microsoft toward completing the regulatory review process.”
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Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.
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