The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is suing to block Microsoft Corp.’s planned $68.7 billion purchase of video gaming company Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI), the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment of Irvine.
The acquisition would harm competition by denying rivals access to popular gaming content and suppress competitors to Microsoft’s Xbox game console, according to the antitrust agency.
The FTC regulators voted 3-1 today to issue the complaint against the planned takeover by Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT).
In a letter to staff, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said today: “This sounds alarming, so I want to reinforce my confidence that this deal will close. The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn’t align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge.”
Shares in Activision Blizzard declined 0.9% to $74.09 apiece for a market cap of $58.5 billion in after-hours trading.
