Shulou(Shulou.com)12/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, December 7 (Xinhua)-- the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is again trying to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $69 billion on the grounds that a federal judge mistakenly approved the deal.

Microsoft announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in January 2022, which is considered to be the largest acquisition in game history. In July, Microsoft successfully defeated FTC, which tried to block the deal in federal court for the Northern District of California. The deal was subsequently approved by UK regulators in September and closed in October.

FTC is appealing against the decision of the federal district court on the grounds that the lower court demanded too high standards of the antitrust regulator.

The agency is expected to argue to a three-member panel of the Ninth Circuit that the lower court made a mistake because they asked FTC to prove that the deal was anti-competitive and that the normal criterion was only whether the deal raised serious competition concerns.

FTC is also expected to argue that the district court judge mistakenly relied on Microsoft's agreements with competitors in the gaming sector to ensure that games were distributed on various platforms as evidence that the deal did not undermine competition.

Microsoft, the owner of the Xbox game console brand, announced in July that it had reached an agreement with Sony, the owner of rival PlayStation consoles, to ensure that call of Duty and other popular games could still be played on other platforms after the merger.

Microsoft is expected to argue before the three-member panel that FTC failed to prove that the district court judge was wrong in ruling that the acquisition was not anti-competitive and that Microsoft would not offer the call of Duty series to other gaming platforms.

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