A year and a half after Microsoft finally bought Activision Blizzard for $69bn, the US Federal Trade Commission’s continuing attempts to block the deal might finally have come to an end after the 9th Circuit Court denied the agency’s attempt to appeal a 2023 lower court decision.
The FTC has been battling Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard since it was proposed in 2022, arguing – in an antitrust lawsuit filed in December that year – the deal would “harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.” After a substantial amount of legal back and forth the following year, the US courts (alongside regulatory bodies around the world) cleared the way for Microsoft’s $69bn deal to proceed, and proceed it did.
However, despite the fact Microsoft’s acquisition was completed in October 2023, the FTC has continued to petition the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to overturn a lower court’s July 2023 decision not to issue a preliminary injunction halting Microsoft’s deal. However, as reported by Reuters, the 9th Circuit Court has now upheld the earlier ruling, saying the lower court “applied the correct legal standards” and that the FTC failed to provide sufficient evidence Microsoft’s deal would lessen competition.
In order to pursue its case further, the FTC would need to convince the US Supreme Court to overturn the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling, or it could resume its own internal administrative action that was put on hold in 2023 pending the 9th Circuit’s decision. But with a new US administration now in power and a new Trump-appointed chairman helming the FTC, the agency’s focus may now be elsewhere.
As for Microsoft, it has been reaping the benefits of its $69bn acquisition since the deal was finalised in 2023; the company’s Q1 2025 financial report showed a substantial 61 percent year-on-year increase in Xbox content and services revenue, largely thanks to Activision Blizzard.