Nintendo has been ordered by the FTC law judge to testify in the ongoing Microsoft-Activision merger lawsuit. FTC law judge D. Michael Chappel issued the order before denying Nintendo’s motion to withdraw from the subpoena too. The judge ruled that Nintendo executive Steve Singer must testify before the FTC’s complaint counsel in the agency’s lawsuit against the Microsoft-Activision acquisition.
The FTC’s lawsuit is a whole separate thing compared to the recent CMA ruling that blocked the merger in the UK. Last week, Microsoft’s attempt to purchase Activision Blizzard was blocked in the UK by the CMA. However, the FTC is also gunning for the company. It has filed a full lawsuit against Microsoft claiming that the acquisition is unlawful.
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Of course, Microsoft now needs to prove that isn’t the case. Steve Singer works as Nintendo of America’s vice president of publisher and developer relations. Singer was directly involved in Microsoft’s so-called “10-year deal” with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to the platform for the foreseeable future.
The FTC served Singer with a subpoena to appear in the case’s trial. He would have to provide more information on the 10-year deal during the case. The technicalities of these deals haven’t been made public and we don’t even know what the deal entails.
Steve Singer originally wanted his lawyer to drop the subpoena. He claimed it was served late but the federal judge was not convinced. The FTC claims that Singer does not deny that he has knowledge of this case and as a result, will need to appear during the hearings. The FTC wants to have the deposition completed by 8 May.
It will be interesting to see where the FTC’s case goes against Microsoft. The council has legally demanded all the details regarding Microsoft’s 10-year deals with NVIDIA, Nintendo and other cloud-based gaming platforms. The company announced a handful for them in the past weeks but didn’t provide any context into what these licensing deals entail.
Source: FTC
