Two men in the Board of Directors for EPIC games abandon their position after the US Department of Justice investigated the Board of Directors under the anti -monopoly law. The pair of directors was originally appointed by Tencent (who appointed Epic’s Board of Directors (who reduced the minority shares in the Unreal engine company) but the US government reviewed this and said: Ah-ah, you are not allowed to have the director in your meeting room if they have deeply talked into a competitive company. Tencent is naughty!
Doj announced resignation in a press release, saying that they were the result of an investigation of potential anti -monopoly violations. The main idea is: Because Tencent is very large and owns completely riot games, they are not allowed to have meeting rooms on monumental games, technically still competitors in the video game industry. It is like letting a big dress in Pepsi come to all important meetings at Coca-Cola. This is all laws under the Clayton Act, in which “Prohibit directors and staff at the same time in the councils of competitors, are subject to limited exceptions.”
The two directors resigned as Ben Feder and David Wallerstein, according to an email Bloomberg received from Epic Games confirming their resignation. The title of Ben Feder’s work at Tencent for many years is the president of the international partnership, and he is the CEO of Take-Two Interactive earlier, a large Tencent publisher. Wallerstein, meanwhile, is a senior Vice President at Tencent until January this year, and is currently being hired as a “senior adviser”. None of them should be present on the board at Epic – at least what is implied by Doj’s investigations. And now they have stepped down, seemingly, to avoid Tencent and more monumental.
“No company or individual acknowledges legal responsibilities related to this investigation,” Doj with typical legal Nous. They also added that Tencent agreed to revise his shareholder agreement with Epic so that they could not appoint directors to the epic council in the future. No more meeting rooms, Corpoys and Corpogirl!
The existing anti -monopoly law to prevent giant companies from establishing monopoly and becoming stronger than they often see. In video games, we saw Valve affected by a past anti -exclusive lawsuit. And Microsoft has been carefully reviewed with similar concerns of both the United States and the European Union when it makes a move (finally successful) to buy Activision Blizzard. Big business will be large.
