The Court committed reversible error when it improperly assigned the FTC the burden of producing a smoking gun document

Wh...What...? The FTC is saying they don't have to produce evidence to disprove Microsoft's position...

Second, the Court relied upon testimony from Microsoft executives that “there are no plans to make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox.” Op. at 35. As an initial matter, this is inconsistent with the Court’s acceptance that it is “likely” that Microsoft will make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox’s Game Pass subscription service

Omfg they're so fucking stupid..."COD WILL BE EXCLUSIVE TO GAME PASS THEREFORE IT WILL BE EXCLUSIVE TO XBOX!"

That “Microsoft executives consistently testified that there are no plans to make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox,” Op. at 35, is irrelevant to the issues properly before the Court: what are the likely incentives of the combined firm and has the FTC raised serious questions as to whether these incentives indicate a reasonable probability that competition may be substantially lessened if Defendants merge.

They're STILL on the "COD will be made exclusive!" argument...

FTC is really taking the "Game Pass is the best exclusive" to an extreme.

Every single title on Game Pass is exclusive to Xbox, lads.

Look at this exclusive.

Is there a specific mod on this site actually working for the FTC?!?!  

Thanks, that's much appreciated

Idk the odds but getting an emergency stay is a high bar and winning a successful appeal against a Judge by claiming they got the law wrong is also an extremely high bar and even harder than winning the initial case, Lol. They could get the stay but they're almost definitely losing the appeal. The stay is on its own very unlikely though.

But the appeal takes months so ideally Microsoft needs the stay to be refused and then close ASAP. FTC can still appeal but instead of a block attempt it will be a divestiture attempt, Judge Corley is right that FTC doesn't have to rush anything, they can argue a divestiture, all this is just delay tactics to try to get Microsoft or Activision to walk away from the acquisition.

I really hope this ends tomorrow or at least comes closer to ending, another few months with the appeal with just be another circus, this case will never truly end will it lol 

Also I assume Act could still walk away esp the appeal goes through and we are back to sept or oct?

If the merger agreement isn't extended then Activision can walk away for whatever reason they want to, whenever they want to, and still pocket the $3bn.

Courts should honestly just ring each other up like "don't we have better shit to do? deny the stay, bye"

Yes, but there's nuance to this, current stock price is tied to this transaction going through, if ABK walks away they might get $3B in cash on hand, which is not guaranteed to be paid in dividends to investors short-term, but how much investors will actually lose in market valuation? Not only that but it's quite common for CEOs and the like to tie their bonus to stock performance, so I would believe they would keep the transaction at the very least until their next bonuses are attributed.