Microsoft’s lawyers bring up Jim Ryan meeting with Activision CEO Bobby Kotick on the same day as the European Commission on February 21st. We’d previously heard Ryan had said to Kotick “I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger.”

Jim Ryan confirms the meeting and what he said:

“I told him [Bobby Kotick] that I thought the transaction was anti-competitive, I hoped that the regulators would do their job and block it”

Ryan says Kotick wanted to “cover himself” with an extended Call of Duty deal with Sony:

“What Bobby wanted to do was cover himself by extending the marketing collaboration between Sony and Activision, in the event of the transaction not proceeding.”