The FTC has told PlayStation it has to reveal its third-party exclusivity deals
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has largely denied Sony‘s request to quash a Microsoft subpoena requesting that it divulge confidential documents.
Microsoft served Sony with the subpoena in January as part of its defence-building process ahead of an FTC lawsuit regarding its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The subpoena included 45 separate requests for Sony documents, including copies of every third-party licensing agreement Sony has, and “all drafts of and communications regarding” SIE president Jim Ryan‘s declaration to the FTC.
Sony attempted to quash or limit the subpoena, arguing that a number of the requests were either irrelevant to the case or too time-consuming and expensive to carry out. However, in a newly filed order made by the FTC’s chief administrative law judge, most of Sony’s arguments have been rejected.
Most notable among Sony’s requests was that an order to produce a copy of “every content licensing agreement [it has] entered into with any third-party publisher between January 1, 2012 and present” be quashed, a request which has been denied.
Sony had argued that this information had no apparent value, and that compiling the documents would mean an “unduly burdensome” manual review of over 150,000 contract records to find which ones were relevant.
Microsoft’s argument, which the FTC has agreed with, was that since much of the Activision Blizzard acquisition case revolves around whether gaining access to its IP could result in Xbox-exclusive titles that could negatively impact competition, it was important to understand the full extent of Sony’s own exclusivity deals and “their effect on industry competitiveness”.
One request the FTC did grant Sony, however, was to limit the date range of
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