Antitrust expert who defeated Microsoft says FTC’s strategy on Activision deal is ‘crazy’
In conversation with Straight Arrow News shows the antitrust law expert Douglas Melamed extremely skeptical of the FTC’s strategy to prevent Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Another reason for this skepticism is that the head of the FTC, Lina Khan, has publicly announced that she will also bring cases when there is not much evidence, which Melamed subsequently described as “crazy”.
“I think that’s pretty crazy,” says Melamed. “I think when you’re losing cases, the closest thing Congress is going to come to is that you’ve either filed bad cases or you don’t know how to try them.”
Douglas Melamed is no stranger and speaks as an antitrust expert and from a position with experience dealing with antitrust law. At that time he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in antitrust proceedings against Microsoft in the 1990s and was successful. In the end, however, the procedure was partially overturned and Microsoft agreed to a settlement.