Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
CNBC
In victory for MicrosoftU.S. Court of Appeals for the ninth Circuit late Friday night negative a request by the Federal Trade Commission to temporarily stop Microsoft from closing its $68.7 billion acquisition of a video game publisher Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft continues to work to resolve issues related to the transaction with the UK Competition and Markets Authority. Each corporations wanted to close the deal by July 18.
“We appreciate the Ninth Circuit’s quick response in denying the FTC’s request for an additional delay to the deal. That is one step closer to the top of this global regulatory review marathon,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft president and vice chairman, in an announcement.
A San Francisco federal judge, after five days of court hearings, issued a verdict against the FTC on Tuesday, and the federal agency filed an appeal on Wednesday.
The FTC first filed a lawsuit to block the takeover last December, then filed for an emergency injunction to block the deal from being accomplished before the agency’s administrative law judge could deal with it. The FTC argued that the deal was anti-competitive because Microsoft could make a few of its games exclusive to its own Xbox game consoles or reduce the experience of Activision games corresponding to popular Call of Duty titles on competing services if the deal went through. Microsoft said it might make the games more widely available as a substitute.
In an urgent motion filed within the ninth Circuit on Thursday, the FTC said the district judge “refused preliminary relief by applying the mistaken legal standard: the court effectively required the FTC to prove its full merits case before the court as arbitrator on the legality of the merger.” The agency applied for pre-trial detention while the court considered an appeal against the district court’s verdict.
Under Lina Khan’s leadership, the FTC has lost other battles with tech corporations, including efforts to stop Meta Platforms from buying virtual reality fitness app startup Inside.
The FTC declined to comment.