{"id":3491,"date":"2023-07-13T15:56:09","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T19:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/?p=3491"},"modified":"2023-07-13T15:56:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T19:56:10","slug":"the-fate-of-microsofts-acquisition-of-activision-blizzard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/13\/the-fate-of-microsofts-acquisition-of-activision-blizzard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fate of Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the FTC filed a notice to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to appeal a court decision to enable Microsoft to continue with its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company behind popular video game franchises \u201cCall of Duty\u201d, \u201cDiablo\u201d, and \u201cWorld of Warcraft\u201d among others. This regulatory hurdle increases the likelihood that a deal will not be reached before the July 18 deadline, at which point Microsoft will either have to ask for an extension or pay $3 bn to essentially walk away.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Previous Ruling<\/h5>\n

This has come after Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley\u2019s Tuesday\u00a0decision<\/a>\u00a0to deny the regulator a preliminary injunction request. In the ruling, Judge Corley stated, \u201cFor the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty<\/em> and other Activision content.\u201d Microsoft\u2019s several licensing deals and offers to bring Activision Blizzard franchises, including \u201cCall of Duty\u201d or \u201cCoD\u201d, to cloud and subscription gaming providers, Sony, Nintendo, Nvidia, and others profoundly impacted this conclusion of this week\u2019s earlier hearing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

FTC Merger Enforcement<\/h5>\n

The FTC\u2019s attack on this particular merger is not unique. In the past few years, it has initiated battles to combat mergers between Amazon and MGM,\u00a0Meta and Within<\/a>, and now Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. These cases represent Chair Lina Khan\u2019s goal to be more aggressive in challenging mergers and acquisitions between large tech companies that would enhance market power for the resulting entity. The current commission believes attacking such trade practices helps better fulfill the FTC\u2019s mission to encourage competition and protect consumer interests.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

FTC Chair Background<\/h5>\n

FTC Chair\u00a0Lina Khan<\/a>‘s views on anti-trust have been clear since she published the article \u201cAmazon\u2019s Antitrust Paradox<\/a>\u201d in Yale\u2019s Law Journal. This groundbreaking publication argued that the current state of the law on antitrust focusing on consumer welfare, often measured by price,\u00a0 is flawed. Khan claims the platform-based business models of big tech may have lasting consequences for consumer choice and innovation, as exemplified by Amazon. The e-commerce giant–one that sells privately labeled products and competes against smaller players selling similar products on a platform and infrastructure it owns–supposedly has an unfair advantage. As proposed reform, Khan suggested the government should increase focus on market structures and adopt a broader definition of competition that includes factors beyond price and consumer welfare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Effects of the Deal<\/h5>\n
\"Activision
Image obtained from Reuters article “Microsoft-Activision deal not yet game on<\/a>“<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section><\/div> (more…)<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although the Tuesday ruling was a huge win for Activision Blizzard and Microsoft, the fight with the FTC isn’t over and the acquisition is far from a done deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-world","category-policy-political-science"],"blocksy_meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3491"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3503,"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions\/3503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ishaanagarwal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}