Whereas it may need seen like the largest hurdle Microsoft must soar to get its acquisition of Activision Blizzard via was the UK’s CMA, it now appears to be like as if it might be the FTC that actually kill the deal.
Noticed by TweakTown, in latest courtroom filings its Microsoft’s personal authorized counsel that admit if the decide grants the preliminary injunction that the FTC is requesting, that would lead to Microsoft abandoning the merger.
Whereas it might be the case that issues go Microsoft’s method, if awarded the injunction, Microsoft’s counsel cites how the authorized battle which might comply with would transfer at a tempo that’s “glacial,” permitting issues to probably drag on for years.
Microsoft’s counsel calls it “a timeframe no merger might survive.”
Although Microsoft and Activision are hoping to get via the attraction course of for the UK’s CMA fast as it will probably, even when Microsoft wins its attraction that might solely restart the method with the CMA opening a second investigation into the deal, at which level it might nonetheless return a block choice.
There may be a world by which Microsoft will get the deal via in every single place besides the UK and has to work round that market in bizarre methods, however there’s no world by which Microsoft would do the identical with the US market.
In any case, it nonetheless looks as if it’ll be a while earlier than the destiny of the deal is really determined.
Supply – [TweakTown]