VIC_Member2015-- "Last, you state that the FTC is meeting in a closed door meeting tomorrow about activision where they will decide to block or allow the deal. Given its a closed door meeting, how do
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<p>VIC_Member2015-- "Last, you state that the FTC is meeting in a closed door meeting tomorrow about activision where they will decide to block or allow the deal. Given its a closed door meeting, how do you know its even about Activision, of which it appears to be too early to make this decision. If you do know its about Activision, how do you know its a decision to block or allow vs any other discussion? In fact, I put significantly less than your 100% probability of there being an ATVI decision tomorrow - no better than 50/50 and likely much lower odds than that. If I had to pick, I do not think they make this sort of large decision tomorrow. Given where we are in the antitrust process, it is very atypical for this to occur this quickly. MSFT themselves believed this was a 1Q'23 decision and, for example, EU or UK isn't deciding until the end of March, so why is the FTC unnecessarily over 4 months early?. But of course this is our opinion based on our analysis, your certainty belies perhaps we missed something - how do you know these things? Assuming you are right it would be very helpful to know."</p>
<p>I am curious on your thoughts on the above, you were pretty assertive that I was absolutely wrong on the points in my piece. If you had indeed "spoken to" Microsoft, how did you not know there was a closed door meeting??? Pretty much everyone in the merger arb community knew about the private meeting and subsequent 1 day delay. It was highly likely they gave sort sort of decision at this meeting given as it was a last rites meeting. It occurred on the exact timing I stated in my piece and was the main reason I expedited my report. It was not the most optimal decision obviously, but the probability was very high on a decision on how to move forward from the FTC. Curious how you arrived at such a low probability and thought a FTC decision was going to be 4 months out?</p>
<p>RE: "Being potentially more difficult in the EU..." I also included the UK CMA point in that comment, from my understanding the UK CMA will likely have a phase 2 decision in early March, or possibly earlier. Given the EC & UK CMA are usually are voting in tandem (or very close to it) I actually think the UK CMA case will be the big hurdle to get over in Q1 '23, from my understanding the EC will make a decision after the UK CMA, so the importance of the UK CMA looms large here. It also likely impacts the FTC thinking on this case, and if approved by the CMA it likely puts greater pressure on the FTC to settle prior to the ALJ case.</p>
<p>RE: ALJ, I'm curious where you get the timing for ALJ potentially "moving to a federal court" besides the Illumina/Grail example given. Is it just a proxy based on that case? Given that deal is about 1/10th the size, there is substantially more complexity to ATVI/MSFT than that given example. So I'm curious how you are thinking about that? Also, given the trial date of ALJ is predicted to be in August, after the deal's drop-dead date, how do you think about the FTCs ability to drag their feet on this and take it past the drop-dead date. Isn't that part of the strategy here? Curious how you arrive at such a low probability of a trial occurring in August?</p>
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