Sony Claims Some Microsoft Requests Pertaining to the FTC Case Are Obvious Harassment

Microsoft and Sony continue to spar about the Federal Trade Commission case, where the US regulator is trying to block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Sony has been the most vocal opponent to the deal in the whole gaming industry, alleging dire prospects for gamers if Call of Duty was ever to be removed from PlayStation platforms. For its part, Microsoft has repeatedly said that it would not make any financial sense to do so and even offered a 10-year deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, Nintendo, and Steam stores. Nintendo accepted, Valve said it didn’t need to, and Sony refused.

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft retaliated by filing a subpoena that would force Sony to reveal a great number of internal documents to the court. Sony requested an extension of time to produce them while also protesting that some of them constitute ‘obvious harassment’, while others would be too costly to produce and irrelevant anyway. Here’s an excerpt from the full document:

Microsoft’s subpoena includes 45 document requests, 3 with subparts, for a total of more than 120 separate document requests. It also has 52 defined terms and 21 instructions, most of which increase the subpoena’s breadth. These requests demand all documents related to nearly all aspects of SIE’s business, as well as extensive sets of sales, financial, and personal user data (e.g., user date of birth, country, gender, for likely millions of users).

Ten of these requests seek materials going back more than 11 years. Even after intensive efforts by Sony Interactive Entertainment to negotiate scope, SIE estimates that providing just the custodial files SIE has offered from the Seven Custodians will cost approximately $2 million. And these documents are only a portion of what SIE has offered. More is not proportionate to impose on a non-party.

[..] Microsoft’s demand for performance reviews for SIE’s leadership is obvious harassment. Even in employment cases, courts require a specific showing of relevance before requiring production of personnel files.

Needless to say, we haven’t read the last of this debate. Meanwhile, the UK’s CMA has provisionally objected to the acquisition as well, though it is open to hearing from Microsoft and Activision regarding potential remedies.