Microsoft Defeats FTC Again, Can Acquire Activision Blizzard

In yet another legal victory for Microsoft, a U.S. Appeals court has ruled against the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) emergency motion to halt the software giant’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

“The motion to file the district court’s preliminary injunction opinion under seal is granted,” the very brief decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reads. “The motion for injunctive relief is denied.”

“We appreciate the Ninth Circuit’s swift response denying the FTC’s motion to further delay the deal,” Microsoft president Brad Smith said. “This brings us another step closer to the finish line in this marathon of global regulatory reviews.”

As I’m sure you know, Microsoft easily defeated the FTC’s attempt to block its Activision Blizzard acquisition after a late June hearing. But the FTC filed an emergency motion two days later over fears that Microsoft would quickly finalize the transaction. Today’s ruling denies that motion, handing the FTC the back-to-back legal defeats it deserves.

Microsoft no longer faces any legal hurdles in the U.S. in its bid to acquire Activision Blizzard before the deal’s July 18, 2023 deadline. The two companies are now free to conclude the deal as soon as tomorrow, Saturday, July 14.

That said, the acquisition still faces a single legal challenge, in the UK, as that country’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to block the transaction in April. But when the FTC was soundly defeated earlier this week, the UK CMA announced that it would renegotiate with Microsoft in an attempt to answer its (nonsensical) concerns. It then quickly claimed that such a renegotiation would require a new investigation on its part, a lengthy process, and so the most likely outcome is that Microsoft will simply finalize the acquisition and then negotiate with the CMA afterward on its own slow schedule.