More than a year after Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of videogame behemoth Activision Blizzard was successfully completed, the US Federal Trade Commission's effort to block it has run aground. A federal appeals court has rejected the FTC's appeal of a ruling that denied its request for a preliminary injunction against the deal, saying the lower court applied the "correct legal standard" and that the FTC has not demonstrated that it was likely to win its case.
If this all seems a bit of a "delayed reaction," well, you're not wrong, but such is the way the system works. The short version is that as part of its battle against the acquisition, the FTC requested a preliminary injunction against it in June 2023, which would put the deal on hold until the FTC's entire case was heard, ruled on, and then appealed to whatever extent possible—a process that would not likely be wrapped up in short order.
