Microsoft and Activision Blizzard CEO will testify in court to defend the $69 billion acquisition
On the evening of June 28, Beijing time, it is reported that the CEO of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will testify in federal court in San Francisco to make a key defense of the nearly $69 billion acquisition.
In January last year, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. When the deal is completed, Microsoft will become the third highest revenue gaming company in the world, after Tencent and Sony. Subsequently, a number of regulators around the world launched investigations into the deal.
Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) applied to the court for a temporary injunction to block the deal. FTC believes that the deal will hurt competition in the game market. Subsequently, a federal judge in California approved FTC's application. The judge said it was necessary to issue a temporary restraining order to maintain the status quo after FTC challenged the deal.
FTC's lawsuit will be continued for five days on June 22nd, 23rd, 27th, 28th and 29th respectively. Activision CEO Bobby Cortek (Bobby Kotick) will testify on Wednesday morning local time, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Satya Nadella) will appear in court on Wednesday afternoon (early Thursday morning Beijing time). The presiding judge in this lawsuit is Jacqueline Scott Corley.
FTC believes the deal will give Microsoft exclusive access to Activision Blizzard games, excluding competitors Nintendo and Sony. To address these concerns, Microsoft has proposed to license Activision Blizzard's blockbuster game call of Duty to competitors.
However, at the end of April this year, the British antitrust regulator, the Competition and Market Authority (CMA), blocked the deal, mainly worried about the adverse impact on future competition in the cloud game market. Microsoft then hired a well-known lawyer to try to overturn the British ruling.
On May 15th the deal was approved by the European Union. The European Commission believes that Microsoft has lagged far behind in the competition in the console game market, making it difficult to change the market pattern. In the emerging cloud game market, the improvements provided by Microsoft can effectively ease the concerns of market competition.
So far, the deal has been approved by Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Serbia, Chile, Japan, South Africa and the European Union, pending approval from the United States and the United Kingdom.
At yesterday's hearing, James Lane (James Ryan), head of Sony Interactive Entertainment, gave video testimony. Ryan said Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard would deal a heavy blow to Sony's game console business and damage the experience of PS console players.
The deadline for Microsoft and Activision Blizzard to complete the deal is July 18. If the deal is eventually blocked, Microsoft will have to pay a break-up fee of $3 billion. Microsoft also admitted in court documents that if it loses in the FTC lawsuit, the deal is likely to fail.
