Breaking over the last hour, the FTC has officially announced that they will sue Microsoft to block their acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. You can find the full filing here, and they also detailed their key claims via a long thread on Twitter (below).
#BREAKING: FTC seeks to block Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc.: https://t.co/ukewjn6MUX /1
— FTC (@FTC) December 8, 2022
The news comes just one day after Phil Spencer and Microsoft announced they had made a deal with Nintendo and Valve to bring Call of Duty to their respective platforms for at least the next 10 years. The dynamics behind the lawsuit are very interesting and will be watched closely across the gaming industry as there could be precedent set for the future.
Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President at Microsoft, followed the FTC’s decision with the following public statement on Twitter.
We have been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns, including by offering earlier this week proposed concessions to the FTC. While we believe in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present it in court.
— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) December 8, 2022
As always, we’ll continue to detail this further courtesy of Hoeg Law on this Sunday’s live show. We hope you can join us!
