California District Court Denies FTC’s Motion For Preliminary Injunction, FTC Appeals Ruling

Last month, the US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit with the District Court of Northern California along with a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft and Activision Blizzard from consummating the merger while they’re still investigating the deal for alleged antitrust violations.

While presiding judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted the TRO, she denied the FTC’s motion for an injunction earlier this week, saying that it’s unlikely that the FTC will prove that the merger will be detrimental to competition in the video game industry and summarily denied their request.

“Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services,” said Judge Corley. “[…] The record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.”

Unsurprisingly, the FTC promptly filed an appeal with the District Court but it’s yet to be submitted to the Ninth Circuit court. The lawsuit is still scheduled to be tried in court in August.

Meanwhile, preparations for the merger are now moving full steam ahead now that the preliminary injunction has been denied. Microsoft hopes to close the deal by its July 18th deadline or risk a renegotiation which could see Activision Blizzard receiving a big payout. Activision Blizzard is also set to be delisted from its respective indices on Monday according to Nasdaq.