When Microsoft outlined its plans for what would happen following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, one of the things that the company stated was that there would not be layoffs as the acquisition would be treated in a strictly vertical fashion. Of course, this was perhaps an obvious prevarication even before the raft of 1900 layoffs in January, but there are actually rules about what happens when you acquire a company saying you won’t lay anyone off and then you have mass layoffs. So the FTC has filed a complaint stating that Microsoft misrepresented its plans following the acquisition.
The complaint filed Wednesday comes in light of the fact that the FTC has still not rescinded its objections to the deal, and if its appeal is successful Microsoft may be forced to divest Activision-Blizzard or at least certain parts of it. Of course, the FTC’s efforts have yet to be particularly successful in this case… but that was also before the acquisition occurred and there were, as mentioned, 1900 people laid off. So we’ll wait and see.
