The European Commission reacted to the American decision to block the takeover of Activision by Microsoft, undermining one of the main arguments of the FTC.
This week was particularly decisive in the context of the takeover of Activision Blizzard King by Microsoft. It must be said that, Thursday, December 8, the FTC – in charge of regulating competition in the United States – met and decided to take Microsoft to court in order to prevent the takeover of the first video game publisher. in the world.
Among the various arguments put forward by the FTC, one concerns Microsoft’s track record and in particular the takeover of Zenimax (Bethesda) in March 2021. According to the FTC’s argument, “Microsoft assured the European Commission during its antitrust review for the Zenimax takeover that it had no intention of blocking Zenimax titles for rival consoles. But, after the European Commission validated the transaction, Microsoft announced that it wanted to make several Zenimax titles, including Starfield , red falland Elder Scrolls VI Microsoft exclusives “.
It is in particular on this apparent reversal of position on the part of Microsoft that the FTC decided to attack the firm in order to prevent it from buying Activision Blizzard King. Even if Microsoft has assured that it wants to keep the licensecall of dutyon PlayStation, on Steam and even to offer it on Nintendo consoles, the FTC claims not to have confidence in the statements of the manufacturer: “Microsoft’s past behavior brings discredit to its public commitments to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles until the end of the existing commitment between Activision and Sony“.
A large part of the FTC’s argument therefore dwells on statements that Microsoft allegedly made to the European Commission… except that these statements were never decisive in the European decision.
The European Commission challenges the main argument of the FTC
As WCCFTech relays, the MLex agency questioned the European Commission on Friday, December 9 to discover that the European authority had never demanded such remarks from Microsoft. Questioned by MLex, the European Commission details:
The Commission validated the takeover of Microsoft by Zenimax unconditionally since it concluded that the transaction did not pose competition problems.
Above all, Microsoft had not, at the time, sought to reassure the European Commission with such promises and the decision “did not rely on a statement made by Microsoft regarding its future distribution strategy for Zenimax games“.
In other words, the main argument of the FTC to attack Microsoft seems to be that of alleged statements refuted by the European Commission itself.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it will seek to prevent Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard.
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