Microsoft for all intents and purposes won its battle against the FTC and all other regulators who at one point looked to stop its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The FTC in particular however, doesn’t know when to quit, at least in this case as it’ll press on by challenging the acquisition through its in-house administrative judge.
This will now run along the FTC still appealing the July decision that allowed Microsoft to move forward with its acquisition, and prevented the FTC from putting a pause on the deal.
“The FTC continues to believe this deal is a threat to competition,” FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham told Bloomberg. Graham also added that while this challenge is being added to the FTC’s calendar, “our current focus is on the federal appeal process.”
It would still take a massive effort for the FTC to unravel the deal at this point, and it could still try to do so even after the deal closes, though as Activision spokesperson Joseph Christinat pointed out, “how the FTC uses the limited taxpayers dollars is its decision.”
Source – [Bloomberg]