FTC judge rules Sony must give Microsoft access to PlayStation business documents

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard that the FTC is suing to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. As part of the preparation for trial, Microsoft issued a subpoena to Sony, requesting a number of business-related documents. As expected, Sony fought back on this, but a Judge has now ruled that years worth of Sony's exclusivity contracts have to be handed over.

Sony made a number of objections to the subpoena, arguing that it should not have to disclose content licensing agreements, exclusivity contracts or employee performance evaluations. Sony also wanted to limit the scope of the document search in a number of areas.

Now, FTC judge, D. Michael Chappell, has ruled on Sony's objections. While some requests were granted, such as a request to exclude documents from prior to 2019. However, the majority of other requests were denied.

In short, Sony must supply Microsoft with its exclusivity and licensing contracts from the 1st of January onward. Sony must also hand over documents related to two employees, Sony Interactive Entertainment's senior vice president of finance, corporate development and strategy Lin Tao and senior video president of global product strategy and management Hideaki Nishino. Sony argued that the files of these two employees were ‘irrelevant' to the case and added that acquiring and translating Japanese documents would add to expenses, but the judge wasn't convinced by this.

In other news, the EU Commission has also extended the deadline for its decision on the deal, so it looks like this situation is going to drag out for a bit longer.

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KitGuru Says: Chances are, Microsoft isn't going to find anything in these documents that it didn't already know about. Still, with squabbles over discovery seemingly dealt with, both sides can now focus on building their final cases for the FTC trial.

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