Microsoft Could Abandon Its Activision Blizzard Acquisition Thanks To The FTC

While it might have seen like the biggest hurdle Microsoft would have to jump to get its acquisition of Activision Blizzard through was the UK’s CMA, it now looks as though it could be the FTC that truly kill the deal.

Spotted by TweakTown, in recent court filings its Microsoft’s own legal counsel that admit if the judge grants the preliminary injunction that the FTC is requesting, that could result in Microsoft abandoning the merger.

While it could be the case that things go Microsoft’s way, if awarded the injunction, Microsoft’s counsel cites how the legal battle which would follow would move at a pace that’s “glacial,” allowing things to potentially drag on for years.

Microsoft’s counsel calls it “a timeframe no merger could survive.”

Though Microsoft and Activision are hoping to get through the appeal process for the UK’s CMA quick as it can, even if Microsoft wins its appeal that would only restart the process with the CMA opening a second investigation into the deal, at which point it could still return a block decision.

There might be a world in which Microsoft gets the deal through everywhere except the UK and has to work around that market in weird ways, but there’s no world in which Microsoft would do the same with the US market.

In any case, it still seems like it’ll be some time before the fate of the deal is truly decided.

Source – [TweakTown]