The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that U.S. antitrust enforcers argued on Wednesday that a federal judge got it wrong when she ruled that Microsoft's $69-billion (U.S.) deal to buy Activision Blizzard was legal under competition law. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that Microsoft closed the deal on Oct. 13. Speaking for the Federal Trade Commission, lawyer Imad Abyad argued that the lower-court judge held the agency to too high a standard, effectively requiring it to prove that the deal was anticompetitive. He told a three-judge appeals court panel that the FTC had only to show that Microsoft had the ability and incentive to withhold Activision's games from rival game platforms to prove the agency's case. He said the FTC "showed that in the past that's what Microsoft did," referring to allegations that Microsoft made some Zenimax games exclusive after buying that company. The FTC is fighting an uphill battle, given that it lost the lower-court fight and that the EU and Britain have signed off on the deal. The legal battle is part of a push by the Biden administration to fight mergers and price hikes that affect consumers in areas ranging from medicines to airline tickets.