So, I was reading about this whole kerfuffle with Microsoft trying to buy Activision Blizzard, right? And, surprise, surprise, the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals just tossed out the FTC’s case. I mean, what a twist! Or maybe not—I kinda saw it coming.
Okay, so here’s the deal – Judge Daniel P. Collins, the guy on the bench, apparently thinks the FTC couldn’t prove Microsoft would keep Call of Duty all to itself. Like, the big plan was apparently to block this deal ’cause they thought Microsoft was gonna hoard it like a Scrooge McDuck with all the coins. But nope, the appeals court is like, “Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley had it right.” She shut down the FTC’s party back in 2023. Yeah, wild times.
Collins basically said something like this: “Hey guys, the district court played it fair and didn’t mess around with the facts.” So, the FTC kinda dropped the ball on making it clear this merger would wreck competition. Not exactly a slam dunk for them, huh?
So rewind to 2022 when Microsoft announced their grand plan to snatch up Activision Blizzard. All sorts of antitrust shenanigans kicked off—because, of course, Call of Duty and all that Xbox cloud biz scared some folks. Monopoly talk started flying around.
But, plot twist, the whole deal finally got the green light in 2023. And here we are! Crazy how these things go down.
