Microsoft claims Activision was already planning ‘significant’ layoffs before its acquisition, ‘consistent with broader trends in the gaming industry’
Microsoft’s latest layoffs “cannot be attributed fully to the merger,” it said
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Microsofthas defended claims made by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that its plans to lay off around 1,900 members of its gaming staffcontradict “representations it made” during the fight to acquire Activision, and stated that Activision was already planning “significant” staff cuts.
In case you missed it, on Wednesday (February 7), the FTC submitted a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in which it alleged: “Microsoft reportedly has stated that the layoffs were part of an ‘execution plan’ that would reduce ‘areas of overlap’ between Microsoft and Activision, which is inconsistent with Microsoft’s suggestion to this Court that the two companies will operate independently post-merger.”
Microsoft’sresponse, submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by Rakesh Kilaru yesterday (February 8), said the FTC’s “factual assertions are incomplete and misleading,” and that the recent layoffs can’t be “attributed fully” to the acquisition.
“Consistent with broader trends in the gaming industry, Activision was already planning on eliminating a significant number of jobs while still operating as an independent company,” the response states. “The recent announcement thus cannot be attributed fully to the merger.
“More important, Microsoft continues fully to stand behind its representations to this Court,” it continues. “To be clear, while some overlap was identified and some jobs were eliminated, Microsoft has structured and is operating the post-merger company in a way that will readily enable it to divest any or all of the Activision businesses as robust market participants in the unlikely event that a divestiture ultimately is ordered. This is precisely what Microsoft represented previously.”
Microsoft’s plans to lay off approximately 1,900 members of staff were revealed last month, and staff across the Xbox, ActivisionBlizzardand ZeniMax teams are reportedly affected.
Looking for some new games to play? You can find some excellent recommendations on our lists of thebest Xbox Series X gamesandbest PC games.
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Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.
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