Today, Microsoft filed a revised response to the United States Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit aimed at stopping the tech giant from acquiring it call of Duty Publishers Activision. the First login contained several arguments claiming that the FTC itself and its court system were unconstitutional. But now Microsoft has ripped that language out of the document, claiming it’s all a bug. You know, just your average oopsie to call a major government agency unconstitutional.
Last year, Microsoft announced its consumption plans call of Duty and World of Warcraft Publisher Activision Blizzard for a a whopping $69 billion. Since then, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have faced each other Pushback and legal roadblocks around the world while various government agencies and regulatory bodies are investigating whether the massive deal would give Microsoft an unfair advantage over its competitors. As you might expect, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have fought back and spent 2022 filing responses, documents and court documents in an effort to seal his deal.
In a press release issued by the FTC last month, the agency announced a lawsuit against the merger, arguing that Microsoft would be able to smother its competitors by making games exclusive to Xbox and manipulating prices should the deal go through. Microsoft fought back with a response that included many arguments, including claims that the FTC itself is actually unconstitutional.
However, as reported by axios, today Microsoft resubmitted its response of the complaint and has omitted the section arguing that the FTC’s complaint is “void because the structure of the Commission as an independent agency with significant executive authority” violates Article II of the US Constitution. In the same section of the original filing, Microsoft also argued that the FTC’s complaint and legal proceeding are “void” because the FTC’s official complaint violated Article III of the US Constitution. Oh, and Microsoft’s legal team also claimed that the FTC’s “procedures” violated the company’s “right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.”
Continue reading: Gamers are suing Microsoft to thwart its merger with Activision
Now that’s all gone and Microsoft tells axios that it probably shshouldn’t have been in that first document.
“The FTC has an important mission to protect competition and consumers, and we quickly updated our response to omit language suggesting otherwise based on the Constitution,” said David Cuddy, Microsoft public affairs spokesman axios. “We initially put all sorts of arguments on the table internally and should have dropped that defense before filing.”
Microsoft says it appreciates all the “feedback” it has received on its arguments that the FTC itself is unconstitutional and is “engaging directly with those who have raised concerns” about the company’s position in it to make the matter “clear”. In other words, the FTC probably didn’t take too kindly to being called unconstitutional, and you probably shouldn’t upset the people who are suing you and trying to stop your whole big merger.
axios reports that Activision is also dropping similar allegations it had included it in its own, separate answer on the same FTC lawsuit.
