Microsoft Corp was stunned last Tuesday in a U.S. courtroom with a private consumer lawsuit alleging that the tech company’s $69 billion bid to buy “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard Inc. will illegally stifle competition in the video game industry.
The complaint filed in federal court in California comes about two weeks after the US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit with an administrative law judge to prevent Microsoft, maker of the Xbox console, from completing the largest acquisition in the video games.
The private lawsuit also seeking an order barring Microsoft from acquiring Activision was filed on behalf of 10 video game players in California, New Mexico and New Jersey. The acquisition proposal would give Microsoft “outsized market power in the video game industry”, alleged the complaint, “with the ability to foreclose rivals, limit production, reduce consumer choice, raise prices and further inhibit competition”.
In a statement, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Joseph Saveri, in San Francisco, said: “As the video game industry continues to grow and evolve, it is critical that we protect the market from monopoly mergers that will harm consumers in the long term.”.
The FTC previously said it sued the company to prevent “the Microsoft gains control over a major independent game studio?? The agency said the merger would hurt competition between rival gaming platforms Nintendo Co Ltd and Sony Group Corp.
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