The Federal Trade Commission complained to a federal appeals court on Wednesday that Microsoft’s layoff of 1,900 employees in its video games division went against its representations in court as it fought to acquire Activision Blizzard. The move undermines Microsoft’s claims that the companies would continue to operate independently, the FTC said, and will make it harder to get “effective relief” if the agency succeeds in its administrative proceeding.
Do you know what you do when someone doesn’t hold up their end of a bargain? You don’t uphold your’s…
If the FTC forces them to unmerge, it’d make others think twice about lying to the FTC, and give the agency much stronger fangs to bite back with in the future.
God I wish. How likely do we think that’s gonna happen though?
I’ll legit eat a shoe if anything actually happens. Those jobs are gone and those people were just tossed aside like a used candy wrapper.
I wish a company wouldn’t be allowed to do any layoffs or mass firings for a period of three years post merge and require 1 year severance after that, to all employees at that company, not just those affected by the merge.
Basically not unless /another/ anti-trust lawsuit is brought against them, and also somehow Teddy Roosevelt time warps into exactly Biden’s location, explodes him Dr. Manhattan style inside out, immediately asks for a fitting suit, signature glasses, and this somehow stuns everyone into just letting him be President for the rest of Biden’s term.
Pretty sure they will only rack up a penalty for it. That said, they could make it sting though, that would also increase FTC’s power.
Penalty? Don’t you mean just another cost of doing business?
Force a fine and three years severance to the affected employees.
Make the fine the last 10 years of activision/blizzard gross profits.
Make the fuckers bleed.
As usual, big corps get finger wagged while avg citizens get life in jail for pot.
From what I understand, it doesn’t work that way. Which is why they are appealing to the 9th circuit court. They’ve been doing this with little success for half a year or so and it’s unlikely they’ll succeed this time either.
Can the FTC force an unmerge? I hope they aren’t toothless like a lot of the other captured regulatory agencies.
The FTC can’t afaik but the justice department can and has forced companies to split up.