Microsoft appears to be fairly certain that its multi-billion dollar acquisition of Activision-Blizzard will go through, as a company source reports that it’s looking to close the deal this Friday, October 13th – nearly a week ahead of its extended October 18th close date.
Despite the hard calendar date offered by the company, Microsoft’s subsumption of ActiBlizz is still not a complete matter, as it still awaits approval from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority; the government body had given a preliminary approval to the transaction but still hasn’t given its seal of approval yet, as it was still consulting a restructuring of the transaction until this past Friday.
The merger date is further being tied down despite facing a renewed challenge from the US Federal Trade Commission, which confirmed in a filing at the end of September that a new in-house evidentiary hearing that seeks to block the deal is scheduled. Readers will remember that the FTC had a similar hearing for August but ended up suspending it in July. This newest evidentiary hearing isn’t set to begin until 21 days after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals makes its ruling on the FTC’s appeal of a July denial, but that won’t be handed down until sometime in December, at which point the FTC likely faces an uphill battle.
Further reading:
Activision-Blizzard is considered a controversial gaming company owing to a long string of scandals, including the Blitzchung boycott, mass layoffs, labor disputes, pay disparities, sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits, federal settlements, executive misconduct, pipeline issues, messy financials, declining titles, failed partnerships, widespread illegal unionbusting, disastrous management, brain drain, bungled OW2 PvE, WoW Classic RMT, and the still-astonishing revelation that the CEO threatened to have his assistant murdered. As of 2023, the company is (theoretically) being acquired by Microsoft.
