The
agency has been pursuing a two-pronged attack against the
proposed transaction. One was in district court, which refused
last week to slap a preliminary injunction on the proposed
transaction. An appeals court also turned down a request for the
deal to be paused.
The second was before an FTC administrative law judge, where the
deal was set to go to trial on Aug. 2. It was this attack that
the agency put on hold on Thursday, in an order made by FTC
Secretary April Tabor.
Microsoft and Activision argued in a motion posted to the FTC's
website on Wednesday that withdrawing the agency's case was both
mandatory and in the public interest.
"The district court had a full opportunity to consider the FTC’s
claims and found that the Commission was unlikely to succeed on
the merits of those claims for multiple, independently
sufficient reasons," the companies said in their motion.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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