Microsoft to pay $250 million settlement over ‘rushed’ Activision purchase

After several years of legal battle, Microsoft is set to pay a $250 million settlement to Activision-Blizzard shareholders who accused former executives at the company of rushing the acquisition and setting a lower price per share.

That is according to Reuters, which reports that former Activision-Blizzard shareholders, led by Swedish pension fund ​Sjunde AP-Fonden, agreed to settle for $250 million with Microsoft following several years of legal battle. The accusations arose from Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision-Blizzard for $75.4 billion in 2023 at $95 per share, in which the shareholders believe they were shortchanged by Acti-Blizz executives and Microsoft.

The shareholders specifically accused former chief executive Bobby Kotick of rushing to merge the company with Microsoft to “keep his job ​and $400 million of change-of-control ​benefits.” Both Microsoft and Kotick filed counterclaims against the shareholders and Sjunde AP-Fonden, which will also reportedly be resolved by this settlement.

The merge between Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft took years to pull through after severe issues with regulators domestically and abroad. The FTC sued to block the merger on anti-trust grounds, while the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority did due to concerns over cloud gaming, leading Microsoft to sell off Activision-Blizzard’s cloud rights to Ubisoft to get the green light.

It remains a controversial topic in gaming, as it is the biggest merger in gaming history, though still far removed from the greatest mergers globally.

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