FTC v. Microsoft: all the news from the big Xbox courtroom battle

A California judge ruled in Microsoft’s favor on the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction blocking its $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. The FTC is now appealing its loss to Microsoft, all before the deal deadline of July 18th. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will now need to rule on Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s decision and even whether there should be an extension to a temporary restraining order (TRO) which is currently set to expire at 11:59PM PT on Friday July 14th.This restraining order is the key part of the deal right now, as if there is no order in place then Microsoft has a window of opportunity to close its Activision Blizzard deal. But there’s still the problem of the UK’s regulators blocking the deal. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Microsoft have agreed to pause their legal battles to figure out how the transaction might be modified in order to address the CMA’s cloud gaming concerns. The CMAblocked Microsoft’s deal earlier th...