Court rejects FTC’s last-ditch effort to stop Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has lost its last-ditch effort to stop Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard. This is the second loss for the FTC after a US federal judge earlier this week denied a request for a preliminary injunction preventing Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard until the conclusion of a separate FTC administrative case.

The FTC appealed Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s decision, and now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request for emergency relief to prevent Microsoft from closing the deal until the outcome of the FTC’s appeal is complete.

Microsoft welcomed the denial late Friday. “We appreciate the Ninth Circuit’s prompt response to deny the FTC’s motion to further delay the deal. This brings us one more step closer to the finish line in this marathon of global regulatory reviews,” Brad Smith, vice president and president of Microsoft, said in a statement. ledge,

That means Microsoft is now free to close its Activision Blizzard deal after a temporary restraining order, which is part of Judge Corley’s order, expires tonight at 11:59PM PT. Microsoft has until July 18 to complete its deal; Otherwise, it would have to renegotiate terms with Activision Blizzard or pay $3 billion in a breakup fee.

However, Microsoft may not be able to close the deal right away. The thorny issue of the deal being blocked in the UK still remains. The Competition and Markets Authority in the UK blocked Microsoft’s deal earlier this year, citing fears of competition in the emerging cloud gaming market. Both CMA and Microsoft have agreed to pause their legal battle to explore how the transaction can be modified to address CMA’s cloud gaming concerns.

The UK regulator also warned this week that Microsoft’s proposals “could lead to a new merger investigation” and that discussions with Microsoft were at an early stage. The CMA has also today issued a notice of extension of its overall investigation into the first transaction, extending the date of final undertaking or final order from July 18 to August 29.

CMA extension comes a few hours later Bloomberg informed of Microsoft is considering selling UK cloud-gaming rights to a telecommunications, gaming or internet company in a bid to complete the Activision deal in the UK.

Update, July 15 at 8 PM ET: Article updated with Microsoft comment.