The FTC Grants Microsoft Slightly-Limited Access To Sony’s Particulars Regarding Its Third-Party Exclusivity Deals And More

Part of the back-and-forth between Microsoft and Sony during the former company’s attempt to purchase Activision Blizzard has been delineating over how much access Microsoft open to during the FTC’s legal proceedings.

Microsoft subpoenaed to have access to contracts between Sony and its third-party dealings around anything dealing with exclusivity from January 1, 2012 till now.

It also asked for a lot more than that, taking the opportunity to try and look into Sony as much as possible.

Sony fought back, and asked to have that window reduced, that the scope of the subpoena be reduced, that certain employees would be removed, and that information regarding employee evaluation of executives including Jim Ryan also be removed.

The presiding judge granted some of Sony’s requests, but not all of them. Its request to have employee evaluations of Jim Ryan and other executives removed from the subpoena was granted.

However its request to try and reduce the scope of the subpoena was denied, though Microsoft is not being given permission to look at anything prior to January 1, 2019, so it was a partial win for Sony.

That partial win and the removal of employee evaluations however is as good as Sony got, because its other requests to remove particular employees and limit the definitions of the subpoena were all denied.

Ultimately however, Sony has now been ordered by the FTC to turn over documents regarding its third-party dealings and exclusivity deals.

It’s likely that we’ll learn a lot more about how Sony deals with its third-party partners, as the case continues to develop.

Source – [GamesIndustry.Biz]