NY Post: Microsoft Will “Cram” Activision Deal “Down The FTC’s Throats”
The New York Post reports that Microsoft intends to finish their acquisition deal for Activision Blizzard King regardless of what the FTC does.
The Post has their own sources within Microsoft confirming this for them. They even have one of those sources going on record that “They are going to cram this down the FTC’s throats.”
As we have been reporting ourselves for some time now, Microsoft saw the CMA as the most important regulator to sway to approve the deal, over the EU and the FTC. This is not because the UK market the CMA has jurisdiction on is more important than the EU, or the US, which is arguably the biggest market for video games.
Instead, it’s because of the rules that these respective regions have in relation to their competition regulation. The CMA was the only regulator that offered no legal recourse for Microsoft to request to approve the deal again if it gets rejected.
So, if the EU turns out to reject the deal alongside the FTC, it will be a huge setback, but it will not be a literal dealbreaker. Microsoft and Activision can still go through legal processes in their respective regions to appeal and get their request reconsidered again.
As things stand now, the UK CMA is expected to approve the deal, with the possibility that they make some extra demands to ensure fair competition in the cloud gaming market. They have already rejected the idea that the deal will be a serious threat to competition in the console gaming market.
On the FTC’s end, we are still awaiting any new developments leading up to the first scheduled hearings for August 2023. FTC administrative law judge Michael Chappell will be hearing the case the Lina Khan-led FTC filed, suing to stop the merger from happening.
Lina Khan has been
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