“Despite clearly intending to use these agreements in its defense, Microsoft has refused to produce underlying internal documents related to these agreements,” the American agency says.
With Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard being investigated by a number of regulatory bodies and how the company will deal with the future Call of Duty statements in question, it has been signing binding agreements with a number of companies, including the likes of Nintendo and Nvidia, to commit to bringing Call of Duty games to their platforms with full feature and content parity for at least the next ten years, with more similar deals in the works as well.
However, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in December to block the acquisition, does not seem to be satisfied with said agreements. In recently filed documents (via VGC), the agency said that Microsoft was signing the deals in an attempt to convince regulatory bodies to approve the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but in fact refused to provide the basic details requested.
“Although it clearly intends to use these agreements in its defense, Microsoft has refused to produce primary internal documents related to these agreements, or to communicate with third parties other than Nvidia, Nintendo and Sony,” the FTC said. . “Microsoft should not be permitted to submit or rely on these agreements without producing the underlying discovery requested.”
The agency is seeking “all documents related to the exclusivity of the content acquired by Microsoft from ZeniMax and the limitation of the content that Microsoft intends to acquire from Activision.”
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission are also investigating Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, although final decisions are expected to be announced within the next few weeks.
