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The first preliminary hearing in a legal dispute between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Microsoft regarding the acquisition of Activision Blizzard is scheduled for Tuesday, January 3, 2023, Reuters reported.
As you probably already know, the US Antitrust Service has every intention of blocking this maneuver and has decided to go to court against Redmon’s company to do this. Activision’s $69 billion acquisition of Blizzard guarantees Xbox exclusive access to some of the strongest franchises on the market, most notably Call of Duty, according to the FTC, hurting competition in the console market by restricting or denying rights to certain games and content on Sony platforms. PlayStation and Nintendo.
In response, Microsoft has said that both gamers and gaming companies will benefit from this maneuver, and is even ready to sign a legally binding agreement with the FTC in which it commits to publish Call of Duty on competing consoles for ten years.
The concessions offered by Microsoft are one of the main reasons many market analysts believe blocking the Activision acquisition of Blizzard will not be easy for the FTC. In the meantime, we are also awaiting verdicts from the CMA and the European Union, which, if negative, could finally jeopardize this maneuver.
In any case, next week’s preliminary hearing may be just the first in a long line of steps before a final verdict is reached in court. Microsoft intends to complete the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by the end of June 2023, but the deadline may increase precisely because of this lawsuit by the FTC.
