A Billionaire Divorcequake & Lina Khan’s M&A Wrath

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Happy Monday, I’m Eriq Gardner.

Welcome back to The Rainmaker! In this week’s edition: troubled marriages, asset wars, and antitrust regulatory frenzy. Plus the latest challenge over Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, the most provocative docket items at the Supreme Court, Back to the Future royalties, car character copyrights, and whether Netflix password sharing is a crime.

But first…

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Lina Khan’s Long-Game Microsoft Deal Killer

Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision deal may be defensible from an antitrust perspective. But Biden’s F.T.C. has an overwhelming advantage: time.

ERIQ GARDNER

Is the biggest proposed merger in video game history dead? That’s what I’ve been contemplating ever since the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint on Dec. 8 contending that Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard would substantially lessen competition. Sure, headline writers made the fate of this merger seem like something less than a fait accompli, and that the government was merely “suing to block” the deal. But I wonder if giving Microsoft any shot here undersells what has just...

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