Yesterday, a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a preliminary injunction against Microsoft in a so-called “gamer lawsuit” aimed at preventing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The lawsuit has made headlines as several self-described “video game consumers,” represented by two law firms (The Alioto Law Firm and The Law Firm of Joseph Savery), are seeking to get a court to block the acquisition, arguing that the deal would harm competition, reduce consumer choice, raise prices, and more. .
In the United States, legislation (Section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act) allows private citizens to sue in antitrust cases, and that’s what happened here. The plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to stop the merger before the suit reaches a resolution. According to court documents provided by the founder of the FOSS Patents blog Florian Muller in social networks, the request was rejected.
The judge explained that even assuming the plaintiffs were able to demonstrate that the acquisition could cause them “personal, irreparable” harm (which has not been ruled on at this stage), they had not shown that the harm could have occurred before the deal closed and a full judgment . on the merits of the claim is accepted.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley explains that there is nothing to indicate that Microsoft can create versions Call of Duty that the plaintiffs already possess somehow cease to work, let alone that they will actually do so. It’s also unlikely that Microsoft will Call of Duty exclusively for its platforms before a full judgment is reached. The plaintiffs suggested that Microsoft could violate written agreements about the future multi-platform nature Call of Duty franchise, but not enough to support the argument that it would cause them immediate irreparable harm.
Simply put, the judge believes that a preliminary injunction to block the merger is not warranted because, even assuming the deal could harm competition or plaintiffs, it is unlikely to do so before the court issues a full verdict. While this does not completely absorb the lawsuit, it does make it unable to block the deal before it happens.
It’s worth noting that while the mainstream and enthusiast press have often referred to this as a “gamer lawsuit,” it’s basically just a regular class action lawsuit brought by law firms using a few individuals in what is essentially the antitrust version of a high-speed chase. help Therefore, in this article, we put the word “gaming” in quotation marks. His frankly clumsy accusations don’t really represent gamers as a group in any way shape or form.
Meanwhile, earlier this week the antitrust regulator The European Union approved the agreement including proposed measures to level the playing field in the cloud market to which Microsoft has agreed. We also learned that yesterday the deal was approved by the Chinese regulatorbringing the number of countries that have allowed acquisitions to 37.
These are leaves UK CMA isolated in its ruling against the deal, with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voicing its opposition, but having to go through a lawsuit to actually be able to block it.
with several national antimonopoly bodies have already approved the deal. The saga continues and we will have to wait to see how things develop with Microsoft and Activision promised to appeal the CMA’s decision. Currently, the situation remains very volatile.