U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) led 21 of his Republican colleagues in calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to drop its antitrust case against Microsoft.
“The FTC should pursue antitrust policy that is pro-consumer and promotes innovation, not weaponize ideological pursuits,” Rep. Armstrong said on July 18. “The FTC’s recent turn away from longstanding practices risks stifling growth and hurting consumer welfare.”
In June, the FTC sued Microsoft to stop its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a video gaming company. U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Corley for the Northern District of California on July 11 denied the FTC’s injunction motion, finding that the FTC failed to demonstrate a likelihood that the transaction would “substantially lessen competition in the video game library subscription and gaming markets,” adding that the “evidence points to more consumer access to… Activision content.”
On July 14, the Ninth Circuit Court denied the FTC’s emergency motion for a preliminary injunction against the merger closing, according to a July 17 letter Rep. Armstrong and his colleagues sent to the FTC’s three commissioners.
The FTC’s “budget has swelled and all there is to show is a mounting list of court losses,” said Rep. Armstrong in his statement. “The FTC should stop its anti-American policies that jeopardize the health of our economy and threaten to increase costs to consumers.”
According to their letter, the FTC’s case against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision is the latest in a series of actions that they think are designed to impede legitimate mergers and acquisitions, while ignoring decades of settled FTC practice across Republican and Democratic administrations.
“Instead of protecting competition as Congress intended, the FTC has spent taxpayer resources seeking to block a deal that promises to expand consumer choice and insulate a dominant foreign company from competition,” wrote Rep. Armstrong and his colleagues.
Among those who joined Rep. Armstrong in signing the letter were U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Larry Bucshon (R-IN), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Carol Miller (R-WV), John Curtis (R-UT), August Pfluger (R-TX), Pete Stauber (R-MN), John Joyce (R-PA), David Valadao (R-CA), and Troy Balderson (R-OH).
“It is foundational that federal antitrust laws are intended to protect competition, not competitors, and certainly not dominant foreign competitors,” they wrote. “It is therefore unsurprising that the FTC failed to meet an incredibly low threshold to obtain a preliminary injunction based on these facts.
“The FTC should follow the lead of the many other jurisdictions that have already cleared the merger,” wrote the members. “There simply is no legitimate antitrust theory upon which Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision should be blocked.”