Why it matters: It’s an aggressive move for the Chamber of Commerce to battle the FTC so directly, pressing back against chair Lina Khan’s agenda and the Biden administration’s broader antitrust push.
It could distract the already resource-strapped
FTC from its long to-do list.
They have been “fighting” for a while but things just escalated today.
So UK, Japan, New Zealand and Australia are already reviewing the acquisition. There are probably more countries.
Nothing yet from the FTC or European Commission, the big ones, but things are really moving now.
Thanks Idas on era! From the big 4 theres only China left. Maybe we arent far off of earing the first regulator approving (YES APPROVING!) the deal thanks to Japanese regulators?
Actually there has been some news on the FTC investigation into the merger:
This seems positive from the article:
Microsoft ([MSFT] certified substantial compliance with the FTC in regards to ATVI several weeks ago, according to a Dealreporter item, which cited sources familiar.
The fact that it states “several weeks ago” makes me believe that 30 days period expired and which is why we see a lot of other regulatory bodies opening up their cases.
Nope, this was a second request, this is their last information request written in their policies. From here they can greenlight, sue or cut a deal for Microsoft to divest some things.
Doing some investigation in UK and found that Activison owns centresoft. which is one of UK’s leading distributors of videogames (and nowadays do more than that)
Now I think about it, for USA, they should be boosting Microsoft to be the champion. Nintendo and Sony are Japan’s company. If they want to be like Homer Simpsons’ dream where he’s all gold, now it’s their chance. Go like reverse, where Atari was the dominant, even though majority of them are in the same region. The point is, this is their chance.
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