Microsoft has retracted some of its arguments in a statement it provided to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in defense of its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
As reported by Stephen Totilo of Axios, Microsoft stated that it made a mistake by including several provocative remarks in a defense statement responding to the FTC’s impending lawsuit. The company has retracted a handful of statements that claim the FTC’s structure and the manner in which it’s handling the lawsuit are in violation of the U.S. Constitution and Microsoft’s Fifth Amendment rights. In the defense statement, the tech giant previously stated that the FTC’s procedures “violate Microsoft’s right to procedural due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment,” among other claims.
In a statement to Axios, Microsoft public affairs spokesperson David Cuddy said that the company changed its statement to remove these claims as well as those saying the FTC is in violation of the Constitution. “The FTC has an important mission to protect competition and consumers,” said Cuddy. “We initially put all potential arguments on the table internally and should have dropped these defenses before we filed.” Similar language has also been revised in Activision’s statement on the lawsuit.
While the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft has already been approved in Chile, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia, it’s facing difficulty in several other countries. Back in December, the FTC announced its intent to file a lawsuit to block the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority is currently in the second phase of an investigation of the deal, which has received comment from both Microsoft and Sony.
