If this news story were a Discord conversation, the US Justice Department would have posted the Futurama Frye squint animated gif and Tencent would have replied with a Homer Simpson disappearing into the bushes animated gif. That’s kind of the way things went down after Tencent pulled its selected members off of Epic Games’ board of directors in response to the US governing body believing Tencent was violating the law. We also kind of hate this is how people communicate most of the time.
According to the Justice Department’s statement, Tencent appointing two directors to Epic Games’ board was in violation of Section 8 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits company directors and officers from serving simultaneously on the boards of competitors as part of the US’ wider antitrust laws. The DOJ asserts that Tencent’s interlock “was created because Tencent also is the parent company of a gaming competitor to Epic, Riot Games” while also being a minority holder of Epic.
In response, Tencent has not only pulled its board appointees from Epic but also relinquished the right to appoint directors or observers to the Epic board in the future. No other enforcement or punitive actions were leveraged against the Chinese company.
