But a June 30 letter from the union to the FTC said it had switched to supporting the deal after Microsoft agreed "to ensure the workers of Activision Blizzard have a clear path to collective bargaining." Department of Justice, the FTC and state attorneys general. In March, the Communications Workers of America had issued a call seeking tougher oversight of the deal from the U.S. Democratic lawmakers have also expressed concern about allegations of Activision's toxic workplace culture for women, which led to employee walkouts last year as well as discrimination lawsuits brought by California and federal civil rights enforcers. Microsoft has also been working to win over skeptics in the U.S., starting with a labor union that's been trying to organize Activision Blizzard employees. It is "seen as more reasonable and sensible" on issues such as data privacy, Kovacic said. On the other hand, Microsoft also has a much better reputation in Washington than it did in 2000. Microsoft's president, Brad Smith, has said the company committed to Sony to make Activision games like Call of Duty "available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future"-although many are skeptical about how long those promises would last if not set into regulatory consent decrees. Microsoft has already publicly signaled its openness to that concept. One solution could be a settlement in which Microsoft agrees to ensure that console-making rivals such as Sony or Nintendo won't be cut off from popular Activision Blizzard games. It said Microsoft's control of popular Activision Blizzard games raised concerns that the deal would hurt rivals in multi-game subscription services and the cloud gaming market. watchdog's preliminary inquiry raised similar worries. In a letter to Brazilian regulators, Sony emphasized Call of Duty as an "essential" game-a blockbuster so popular and ingrained that it would be impossible for a competitor to develop a rival product even if they had the budget to do so. The possibility of Microsoft gaining control of Call of Duty has been particularly worrisome to Sony, maker of the PlayStation console that competes with Microsoft's Xbox. "Collectively, that means that the kinds of concessions you're going to have to make become more difficult," Kovacic said. There's also a growing sense that past review of Big Tech mergers was too lax-such as when Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. It would give Microsoft, maker of the Xbox console and gaming system, control of popular game franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. The all-cash deal is set to be the largest in the history of the tech industry. But the sheer size of the Activision Blizzard merger has drawn global attention. In recent years, however, Microsoft has largely escaped the more intense regulatory backlash its Big Tech rivals such as Amazon, Google and Facebook's parent company Meta have endured. That verdict was overturned on appeal, although the court imposed other, less drastic, penalties on the company. Microsoft has faced antitrust scrutiny before, mostly notably more than two decades ago when a federal judge ordered its breakup following the company's anticompetitive actions related to its dominant Windows software. "Many of the jurisdictions that are exercising that scrutiny are significant economies and can't be brushed off." "A growing number of countries are subjecting major global transactions to deeper scrutiny," said William Kovacic, a former chairman of the five-member U.S. More than seven months after Microsoft announced the deal, only Saudi Arabia has approved it. In the United Kingdom, regulators on Thursday threatened to escalate their investigation unless both companies come up with proposals within five days to ease competition concerns. regulators emboldened by President Joe Biden to strengthen their enforcement of antitrust laws. But to get to the next level, Microsoft must first survive a barrage of government inquiries from New Zealand to Brazil, and from U.S.
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