Demartini v. Microsoft Corporation
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:22-cv-08991
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Demartini v. Microsoft, Judge Corley denied plaintiffs’ request to join the FTC’s expedited merger-hearing proceedings.
The plaintiffs in the private antitrust action were denied the ability to join the FTC’s expedited evidentiary hearing; the order did not decide the merits of the proposed merger.
What happened
In Demartini v. Microsoft Corporation, the plaintiffs brought a private antitrust case seeking to block Microsoft’s proposed merger with Activision Blizzard. After the court denied their request for a preliminary injunction, the Federal Trade Commission filed a separate case seeking to block the merger while its administrative review continued.
The plaintiffs asked to participate in the FTC case’s expedited evidentiary hearing through limited joinder, which would have added them as parties for that proceeding. They argued for participation, but the court considered whether joining them would cause unfairness, delay, or inefficiency.
Judge Corley denied the plaintiffs’ motion for permissive joinder. The court found that adding them would delay the FTC proceeding and create judicial inefficiencies, and that the plaintiffs would not be prejudiced because they had already presented their arguments in their own preliminary-injunction proceeding.
The detailed version
- Demartini v. Microsoft Corporation · No. 3:22-cv-08991
- Jacquelyn Corley
- June 21, 2023
Background
Plaintiffs filed a private antitrust action under Sections 7 and 16 of the Clayton Act seeking to enjoin the proposed merger of Microsoft Corporation and Activision Blizzard. On May 19, 2023, the court denied plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. On June 12, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a separate action under Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act seeking to prevent Microsoft and Activision from completing the merger while the FTC’s administrative review was pending. The court related the two actions, and scheduled an expedited evidentiary hearing on the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction.
Plaintiffs then moved for “limited joinder” so they could participate in the evidentiary hearing in the FTC action. The court considered the motion without oral argument.
Legal standard
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a)(1) permits plaintiffs to join one action when their claims arise from the same transaction or occurrence and share a common question of law or fact. Even when those technical requirements are met, however, a court may deny permissive joinder when it would be unfair, cause prejudice, create delay, or undermine judicial efficiency.
Court’s ruling
The court assumed, without deciding, that the technical requirements for permissive joinder were satisfied. It nevertheless exercised its discretion to deny joinder under Rule 20. Because the FTC’s preliminary-injunction hearing was proceeding on an extremely compressed schedule, the court found that allowing plaintiffs to participate would not be fundamentally fair, would needlessly delay the FTC action, and would create judicial inefficiencies. The court also found that denying joinder would not prejudice plaintiffs because they had already had an opportunity to present their arguments in support of a preliminary injunction.
The court denied plaintiffs’ motion for joinder and stated that the order disposed of Docket No. 223.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.