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

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens Mr. Air, GASP3DAL, OC_Formula, West window old story, soft media new friend 2xrpri for the clue delivery! On the morning of July 13, Beijing time, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said today that it would appeal a decision of the Northern District Court of California to continue to block Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of game publisher Activision Blizzard.

Jacqueline Scott Corley, judge of the Northern District Court of California, ruled yesterday, rejecting FTC's request for a preliminary injunction on the deal, allowing Microsoft to proceed with the acquisition.

FTC said today that it would appeal the ruling.

In response, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Curtico (Bobby Kotick) said: "I would be surprised if FTC wasted taxpayers' resources on such a thing." Kotick believes that the Court of Appeal will not grant a stay of execution of the transaction.

Daniel Klein (Daniel Crane), an antitrust scholar at the University of Michigan Law School, said: "the success of the appeal depends largely on the analysis of the 'factual record'." Klein believes that there is no record of facts that contradict Microsoft's promises. Microsoft has promised not to limit call of Duty to its own Xbox platform. "it may be difficult for FTC to establish this fact in an appeal," Klein said. "

In January last year, Microsoft announced that it would buy Activision Blizzard for about $69 billion. When the deal is completed, Microsoft will become the third highest revenue gaming company in the world, after Tencent and Sony. Subsequently, a number of regulators around the world launched investigations into the deal.

Earlier this month, FTC applied to the court for a temporary injunction to block the deal. FTC believes that the deal will hurt competition in the game market.

So far, the deal has been approved by Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Serbia, Chile, Japan, South Africa and the European Union, pending approval from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Yesterday, after Judge Corley approved Microsoft to proceed with the deal, the Competition and Market Authority (CMA), the UK's antitrust regulator, said it was ready to re-evaluate any proposals from Microsoft. Microsoft, Activision Blizzard and CMA have asked the court to suspend the litigation process.

Britain's CMA has taken a sharp turn today, the UK's CMA said a restructuring deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard could allay its concerns, marking a concession to Britain's opposition to the largest gaming deal in history.

It is obvious to all that CMA in the UK is a strong opponent of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. There was an antitrust investigation into the deal a long time ago, and at the end of April this year, CMA officially blocked the deal, mainly worried about the adverse impact on future competition in the cloud game market. Later, Microsoft hired a well-known lawyer to try to overturn the ruling.

Influenced by the US judge Corley's ruling, the British CMA said today that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard could choose to restructure the deal before CMA opened a new investigation. "Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have said they are considering how to modify the deal and we are preparing to contact them on that basis," CMA said. CMA also said that the discussions are still at an early stage and the timing of the next step will be determined in due course.

The UK's CMA's decision to agree to reconsider the deal at this stage surprised advisers and many antitrust lawyers when it did not want to break away from European and US jurisdictions at a time when FTC's appeal was looming.

"this is really an unprecedented dramatic shift," said Alex Haffner, a partner at Fladgate, a UK law firm.

One person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were surprised by CMA's decision, saying UK regulators did not seem to want to leave the EU and US jurisdictions. In May, the European Union approved the deal.

According to the plan, the deadline for Microsoft and Activision Blizzard to complete the deal is July 18. If the deal is eventually blocked, Microsoft will have to pay a break-up fee of $3 billion. Microsoft also admitted in court documents that if it loses in the FTC lawsuit, the deal is likely to fail.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.