US FTC official withdraws case against Microsoft-Activision deal before internal agency judge

[July 21, 2023]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission official on Thursday withdrew the agency's case before an in-house judge that sought to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of game-maker Activision. 

Microsoft logo is seen on a smartphone placed on displayed Activision Blizzard's games characters in this illustration taken January 18, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

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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