{"id":42634,"date":"2025-05-22T20:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T01:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42634"},"modified":"2025-05-22T21:17:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T02:17:37","slug":"ftc-drops-case-over-microsofts-69-billion-activision-blizzard-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42634","title":{"rendered":"FTC drops case over Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped a case that sought to block Microsoft’s (MSFT.O), opens new tab<\/u><\/a> $69 billion purchase of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard, saying on Thursday that pursuing the case against the long-closed deal was not in the public interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson is seeking to use the agency’s resources for cases that fit with President Donald Trump<\/u><\/a>‘s agenda, such as a probe related to whether advertisers colluded to spend less on X<\/u><\/a> first reported by Reuters on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferguson is beginning to shut down some efforts started by his predecessor Lina Khan, including dropping a case<\/u><\/a> on Thursday that had accused PepsiCo (PEP.O), opens new tab<\/u><\/a> of price discrimination that favored Walmart (WMT.N), opens new tab<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FTC lost an appeal<\/u><\/a> on May 7 seeking to reverse a judge’s decision declining to block the Microsoft-Activision deal, which closed in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft President Brad Smith said on Thursday that the FTC’s decision to drop the case was “a victory for players across the country and for common sense in Washington, D.C.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When challenging a new merger, the FTC typically asks a judge to temporarily block the deal to give the agency time to challenge it in its own administrative court. But deals that are temporarily blocked are often abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the FTC lost its case seeking to block the deal temporarily, the agency could have sought to unwind the acquisition at a trial that was scheduled for July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Activision Blizzard transaction marked the largest-ever acquisition in the video gaming market. The FTC claimed the tie-up would allow Microsoft to fend off competitors to the Xbox console and to its subscription and cloud-based gaming business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped a case that sought to block Microsoft’s (MSFT.O), opens new tab $69 billion purchase of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard, saying on Thursday that pursuing the case against the long-closed deal was not in the public interest. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson is seeking to use the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":42635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[2790,2444,1972],"class_list":["post-42634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-case","tag-ftc","tag-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42636,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42634\/revisions\/42636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}