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photo: Zed Jameson \/ Bloomberg (Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nToday, Microsoft filed a revised response to the United States Federal Trade Commission’s argument intended to stop the tech giant from buying up Call of Duty<\/em> publisher Activision. the initial filing<\/span> contained multiple arguments claiming the FTC itself and its court system were unconstitutional. But now Microsoft has yanked that language out of the doc and claimed it was all a mistake. Y’know, just your average oopsie of calling a large government agency unconstitutional. <\/p>\nLast year, Microsoft announced its plans to consume Call of Duty<\/em> and World of Warcraft <\/em>publisher Activision Blizzard for a whopping $69 billion<\/span>. Since then, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have faced pushback and legal roadblocks around the world<\/span> as various government agencies and regulatory committees investigate if the massive deal would give Microsoft an unfair advantage against its competitors. As you would expect, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have fought back and spent 2022, filing responses, docs, and court paperwork<\/span> in an effort to make its deal happen.<\/p>\nIn a press release put out by the FTC last month<\/span>, the agency announced a public argument against the merger and reasoned that Microsoft would be able to stifle its competitors by making games Xbox exclusives and manipulating prices, should the deal go through. Microsoft fought back via a response that contained a lot of arguments, including the assertion that the FTC itself was actually unconstitutional.<\/p>\nHowever, as reported by axios<\/em><\/span>, today Microsoft refilled its response<\/span> to the lawsuit and has omitted the section arguing that the FTC’s argument was \u201cinvalid because the structure of the Commission as an independent agency that wields significant executive power\u201d violates Article II of the US Constitution. In that same section of the original filing, Microsoft also argued that the lawsuit and legal proceedings’ being carried out by the FTC were \u201cinvalid\u201d because the FTC officials complaint violated Article III of the US Constitution. Oh, and Microsoft’s legal team also claimed that the FTC’s \u201cprocedures\u201d violated the company’s \u201cright to Equal Protection under the Fifth Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\nRead More:<\/strong> Gamers Are Suing Microsoft To Thwart Its Merger With Activision<\/span><\/p>\nNow all of that is gone and Microsoft tells axios<\/em><\/span> <\/em>that it probably shouldn’t have been in that initial doc in the first place.<\/p>\n\u201cThe FTC has an important mission to protect competition and consumers, and we quickly updated our response to omit language suggesting otherwise based on the constitution,\u201d Microsoft public affairs spokesperson David Cuddy told axios<\/em>. \u201cWe initially put all potential arguments on the table internally and should have dropped these defenses before we filed.\u201d<\/p>\nMicrosoft says it appreciates all the \u201cfeedback\u201d it received about its arguments claiming the FTC itself was unconstitutional and are \u201cengaging directly with those who expressed concerns\u201d to make the company’s position on the matter \u201cclear.\u201d In other words, the FTC probably didn’t take too kindly to be called unconstitutional and you probably shouldn’t anger the people suing you and trying to stop your whole big merger from happening.<\/p>\n
axios <\/em>reports that Activision is also dropping similar it had included in its own, separate response<\/span> to the same FTC lawsuit. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
photo: Zed Jameson \/ Bloomberg (Getty Images) Today, Microsoft filed a revised response to the United States Federal Trade Commission’s argument intended to stop the tech giant from buying up Call of Duty publisher Activision. the initial filing contained multiple arguments claiming the FTC itself and its court system were unconstitutional. But now Microsoft has …<\/p>\n
Microsoft Called FTC Unconstitutional, Regrets The Error<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[9310,1423,3900,1522,45811,21330,19087,286,1514,45812,447,1519],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nMicrosoft Called FTC Unconstitutional, Regrets The Error - harchi90<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n