Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to the news on the morning of January 26, Beijing time, several people familiar with the matter said today that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in December last year, in part to get ahead of the European Commission and dissuade them from accepting Microsoft's compromise to approve the deal.

Us and EU officials discussed their investigations over the phone in December about Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which is currently about 467.82 billion yuan, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Hours after the call, FTC filed a lawsuit against the deal on December 8.

EU officials said during the call that they planned to negotiate potential remedies with Microsoft, the person familiar with the matter said. But the EU's decision prompted FTC to sue Microsoft the same day after the call, sending a strong signal to EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager and her staff not to approve the deal easily. Technically, though, FTC will not consider the remedial recommendations of the company under investigation until later in the investigation process.

EU and UK officials are not expected to make a decision on whether to approve the deal until April. U. S. officials usually put it off until the deadline is close to trying to work out a global solution. As a result, FTC is not expected to make a decision until the spring, people familiar with the matter said.

Barry Nigro, a former senior official at the US Department of Justice and head of antitrust practice at Fry Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP, a law firm, said that by acting quickly, FTC would be able to get ahead of the Europeans and try to shape the story (setting the tone of the deal).

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard requires approval from 16 jurisdictions, of which FTC, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission are the biggest obstacles. The three international agencies have been in close contact since the deal was announced in January 2022.

The European Commission is conducting an in-depth investigation into the deal and plans to make a decision by April 11. The European Commission is expected to issue a so-called "statement of dissent" in the near future setting out the reasons why the deal could be blocked if there are no remedies. Of course, "statements of dissent" are common in large deals and do not necessarily mean the deal is about to be vetoed.

UK regulators are also reviewing the deal and plan to issue a preliminary decision later this month or early February, with a final decision on April 26.

Microsoft plans to propose a global remedy to the European Union to ensure that Sony's PlayStation will continue to use the popular call of Duty (Call of Duty) game over the next decade. But so far, Sony has not accepted Microsoft's assurance.

In addition, Microsoft reached an agreement to provide the game to Nintendo and allow STeam, Valve's PC game platform, to sell the game. If EU officials accept these global remedies, it could weaken the US or UK investigation into the deal.

Before that, the EU has run counter to US and UK regulators. In February this year, the European Commission accepted a settlement agreement that approved the merger of two Finnish shipping equipment giants. But a month later, both the UK and the US said they would block the deal, leading the two companies to abandon the merger.

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