22 House Republicans: Kelly Armstrong, Jim Jordan, James Comer, Brian Fitzpatrick, Larry Bucshon M.D., Earl L “Buddy” Carter, Ben Cline, Lisa McClain, Jeff Duncan, Kevin Hern, Carol D. Miller, Richard Hudson, Wesley Hunt, John Curtis, Nathaniel Moran, August Pfluger, Byron Donalds, Pete Stauber, John Joyce, David G. Valadao, Diana Harshbarger, and Troy Balderson have come together and signed a letter calling on the FTC to drop its fight against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. They believe that the FTC “has sharply veered from established antitrust policy, toward an anti-consumer, anti-innovation, and anti-American policy that jeopardizes the health of our economy and threatens to increase costs to consumers.”

According to these 22 Republicans, the final push that drove this letter into fruition was the FTC’s push to stop the Xbox Activision Blizzard merger. “The latest, and most egregious, example of the FTC’s rejection of sound antitrust policy was the decision to seek a preliminary injunction against a procompetitive transaction, Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision. As Judge Jacqueline Corley of the Northern District of California found, the FTC failed to demonstrate a likelihood that the transaction “…will  substantially lessen competition in the video game library subscription and cloud gaming markets” and indeed, the “… evidence points to more consumer access to … Activision content.’ We write to express our concerns, and to urge you to drop this matter and refocus the FTC’s resources on work that supports the interests of American consumers.”

The Republicans believe that the FTC’s failure against Microsoft is the latest in a series of actions that are clearly designed to impede legitimate mergers and acquisitions, while ignoring decades of settled FTC practice across Republican and Democratic administrations. “Instead of protecting competition as Congress intended, the FTC has spent taxpayer resources seeking to block a deal that promises to expand consumer choice and insulate a dominant foreign company from competition,” the Republicans wrote. “It is foundational that federal antitrust laws are intended to protect competition, not competitors, and certainly not dominant foreign competitors. It is therefore unsurprising that the FTC failed to meet an incredibly low threshold to obtain a preliminary injunction based on these facts. The FTC should follow the lead of the many other jurisdictions that have already cleared the merger.”

“As the FTC continues to suffer defeats in such cases, it demanded a massive budget request totaling
$590 million, which is a $160 million increase from Fiscal Year 2023,” The Republicans wrote. “We cannot help but wonder if the FTC would need increased resources were it not wasting time and money on challenges such as the one it has brought against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision —an acquisition which, according to a federal judge, multiple other antitrust regulators from around the world, and simple common sense—is not anticompetitive.”

Microsoft and the CMA, who blocked the Activision Blizzard acquisition in April are attempting to negotiate terms that would satisfy the CMA’s issues with the merger. They were granted a two-month pause of their battle following Microsoft’s appeal of the CMA’s decision. The CMA also extended the deadline for its final decision to August 29.

Microsoft and Activision are also negotiating a deal extension to their merger agreement. The agreement expires today. After the deadline, both companies have the right to walk away from the deal but Microsoft would have to pay Activision a $3 billion termination fee. Reuters reports that Microsoft has been pushing for a contract extension to ward off potential interest in Activision from other suitors, and to ensure Activision doesn’t have a change of heart.