Lina Khan is accused of taking a pro-Sony position.

She was questioned by Diana Harshbarger (Republican), a member of the First Congressional District of Tennessee, about why she openly sides with Sony. “I’d say we can all agree that competition law isn’t supposed to protect a dominant player. In light of that, I find it curious that the FTC is taking action to protect Sony, which has 68% of the global market for high-end video gaming consoles, from the competition and attempting to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. As you know, Sony has been the most vocal opponent of that deal, and remarkably, the FTC has sided with Sony. Can you explain why that seems a good idea?” Harshbarger asked during the meeting.

“This case also has been voted out and is in administrative proceedings, so I’ll let the complaint speak for itself. I would say, as a general matter, we always really benefit from hearing market participants across the board, including big players, but at the end of the day, we always make our independent judgments based on the law and the facts,” replied Khan, who apparently followed the Hungarian example and ignored the question and was only deflecting.

Let’s not forget that in early December, the FTC, the US Federal Trade Commission, announced that it was bringing an antitrust case against Microsoft because it believes it would be anti-competitive for the Redmond giant to own the publisher and thus suppress its rivals in the console, subscription, and cloud markets. Microsoft’s lawyers reacted immediately, arguing that the FTC violated the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution…

Following a pre-trial hearing in early January, an evidentiary hearing is scheduled for August 2 before an administrative judge at the FTC’s headquarters. Still, for now, the playing field is heavily in Microsoft’s favor, as the European Union and the United Kingdom will both issue their final rulings on the acquisition next week. Rumor has it that the EU will approve the deal without demanding significant concessions from Microsoft. At the same time, the UK recently withdrew its view that the acquisition would threaten competition in the console market.

We shall see.

Source: WCCFTech