MADRID, 13 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Federal Trade Commission of the United States (FTC, for its acronym in English) has registered with the courts a notice of appeal, after a federal judge ruled last Tuesday that Microsoft can go ahead with the purchase of the video game giant Activision Blizzard, a transaction valued at 69,000 million dollars (62,745 million euros).
The petition filed with the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit seeks to reverse the decision of Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the Northern District of California Court, who found that the FTC had not shown that it is probable that the combined company will surely eliminate ‘Call of Duty’ by Sony PlayStation, or that Activision’s ownership of content will materially harm competition in the cloud gaming and subscription gaming markets.
“The District Court ruling makes it very clear that this acquisition is good for both competition and consumers,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, in a statement collected by ‘CNBC’. “We are disappointed that the FTC is continuing with what has become a demonstrably weak case,” he added.
For its part, Activision defended that “the facts have not changed” and expressed confidence that the United States will remain “among the 39 countries where the merger can be closed.”
The purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft has divided those responsible for Competition in the main economies, since the European Commission authorized the transaction with conditions last May, while the British CMA decided to block the merger.
In this regard, the British regulator indicated on Wednesday that it was willing to consider any proposal from Microsoft to restructure the transaction.
