T2 and the FTC are really going at it over the EA acquisition. With T2 paying over 50k USD in lawyer bills a day, they claim they are doing everything required and more to satisfy the FTC probing. But T2 got tired of the bickering and shot back in a document filed yesterday with the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.;

No one at Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (“Take-Two”) is seeking to thwart the proper investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) staff of Electronic Arts, Inc.’s (“EA”) tender offer. On the contrary, from the outset, Take-Two has fully cooperated with these efforts, already having produced more than 479,000 pages of responsive documents through the date of this Opposition.

The issue before the Court is how the seemingly boundless desire of a government agency for information can be contained in order to save a company from the ruinous costs of compliance with a subpoena that requires it to search virtually every electronic and paper document in its possession, and to make available most of its senior executives for investigational hearings (pre-complaint depositions) in a situation where the company is not even a willing party to any transaction being investigated and where it is quite possible that no such transaction will ever occur.

This quote is basically saying that Take-Two is doing everything the FTC is asking for. They also say that T2 is not trying to sabotage any investigation or reviews conducted against the company inquiring about the acquisition. Then they just get tired of chooisng their words and say that the FTC’s conduct is just abusive to the company. Then Take-Two continues saying;

The FTC fails to engage in any meaningful analysis, in either its negotiations or motion papers, of its specific requests. It refuses to acknowledge that compliance with all of its requests would require a comprehensive, company-wide review of Take-Two’s data and documents, which encompass a huge universe of information...

Also, Take-Two’s pipeline is being probed. More specifically, how they actually get their sports games to the market. Take-Two submitted hundreds of exhibits to the courts, and along was data on its exclusive licensing arrangement with Major League Baseball , MLB 2K8, as well as NPD sales data for its sports games from 2001-2007.

This is going to be a long year if Take-Two can tough it out until the end. EA sure has all their cards on the table to put this one in the banks. If Take-Two makes it to 2009, and if EA hasn’t won by then, we might actually see T2 come out of this alive and well. If that happens, EA will lose millions in all the resources they have committed to the fight to gain T2. Good Luck EA and FTC, your fight is just starting.

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Via: GamePolitics