First pretrial hearing in the FTC's case against Microsoft's $69B bid to take over Activision Blizzard set for January 3, 2023
A judge has set Jan. 3 for the first pre-trial hearing in the Biden administration's case against Microsoft (MSFT.O) over its $69 billion bid to take over “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O).
Context & Ripple Effects
The FTC moved from reporting to action here: after sources said staff were skeptical of Microsoft's arguments and the agency prepared its antitrust lawsuit to block the deal, a judge has now put the case on a calendar with a January 3 pretrial hearing. That gives the $69B acquisition a defined litigation runway heading into 2023.
Microsoft is fighting on two fronts at once — the UK's CMA had already opened its own antitrust investigation months earlier — so the US hearing date matters not just for the FTC case but for coordinating a global regulatory defense.
First-order effects
- Microsoft and Activision Blizzard now face a fixed procedural schedule in the FTC's administrative case, extending deal uncertainty and the merger agreement's closing timeline deep into 2023.
- The FTC gets its first formal venue to test its theories of harm against Microsoft's and Activision's arguments before an in-house judge.
Second-order effects
- With both the FTC and the CMA probing the same transaction, Microsoft must run parallel legal and remedy negotiations across jurisdictions, raising the cost and complexity of closing.
- A prolonged US review pressures Activision Blizzard's standalone position — its board committed to the deal while competitors gain time to lock up content and partnerships during the limbo.
Third-order effects
- The arc that follows — a court denying the FTC's bid for a preliminary injunction as unlikely to succeed, then the FTC suspending its in-house trial for settlement talks — suggests courts will demand tighter merger theories than vertical-content concerns alone, shaping how the agency pursues future big-tech deals.
- If regulators keep challenging large platform acquisitions through full litigation rather than negotiated fixes, deal timelines for major tech M&A structurally lengthen regardless of outcome.
The trend: US and UK regulators are converging on aggressive, multi-front challenges to mega platform-and-content acquisitions, testing whether courts will back them.