Commissar SFLUFAN Posted January 18, 2022 Share Posted January 18, 2022 US competition enforcers launch overhaul of merger approval process WWW.THEVERGE.COM And the Senate will take on antitrust enforcement this week. Quote On Tuesday, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission launched a joint effort to modernize antitrust enforcement, seeking comment on how the agencies can apply current law in cases against tech companies like Meta (parent company of Facebook) and Google. The announcement came at a joint press conference from FTC Chair Lina Khan and Justice Department Antitrust Chief Jonathan Kanter, who described the move as a wide-ranging enforcement modernization effort. While the announcement spans markets, it specifically questions how regulators should approach merger approval in digital markets, potentially setting new legal standards around data aggregation, interoperability, and market consolidation that can affect competition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted January 18, 2022 Share Posted January 18, 2022 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 18, 2022 Share Posted January 18, 2022 I would bet it will make mergers easier and faster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted January 18, 2022 Share Posted January 18, 2022 11 minutes ago, sblfilms said: I would bet it will make mergers easier and faster I wouldn't call that a guarantee here. Facebook asks for FTC Chair Lina Khan to be recused from its antitrust case WWW.CNBC.COM Facebook's petition follows a similar move by Amazon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwinIon Posted January 18, 2022 Share Posted January 18, 2022 I did notice that one of the first things said in the announcement video was that even after the merger MS would still only be the third largest video game company, after Tencent and Sony. I'm sure that was aimed at regulators. Hopefully this new FTC can change the way we think about anti-trust in this country, though I won't hold my breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spawn_of_Apathy Posted January 19, 2022 Share Posted January 19, 2022 They likely have no idea how big a deal this merger is in the gaming industry. They just assume it’s big because of the price tag. Most senators wouldn’t be able to pick Activision out of a corporate line up. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwinIon Posted January 19, 2022 Share Posted January 19, 2022 While I do expect to see this FTC be a bit more bullish on anti-trust, I also don't expect them to stop the MS deal. Yeah, Activision/Blizzard does have their own launcher/storefront, but they're not really competitive with MS in that way. The games industry will still be left with a bunch of competition at various sizes, and it's unlikely this has any real impact on consumer pricing. The most that I can imagine is the FTC putting some kind of limited conditions on the sale, forcing MS to continue publishing on other platforms for a time, but even that seems unlikely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted January 19, 2022 Share Posted January 19, 2022 Microsoft Deal Wipes $20 Billion Off Sony's Market Value in a Day FINANCE.YAHOO.COM (Bloomberg) -- Sony Group Corp. shares fell 13% in Tokyo on Wednesday, their biggest drop since October 2008, after PlayStation rival Microsoft Corp. announced a $69 billion deal to... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted January 20, 2022 Author Share Posted January 20, 2022 An actual member of Congress has weighed-in: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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