Two Epic Games directors resign after US Justice Department probes gaming company under antitrust laws

Two people on Epic Games’ board of directors have been removed from their positions after the United States Department of Justice investigated the board under antitrust laws. The pair of directors were originally appointed to the Epic board by Tencent (which owns a minority stake in the Unreal Engine company), but the US government looked at it and said: Ah-ah, you’re not allowed to do that. If you already have your fingers in a competing company’s pie, have a director in your boardroom. Damn Tencent! Naughty Epic! And, yes, Naughty Riot Games!

DOJ He announced his resignation in a press releaseClaiming that they are the result of an investigation into antitrust violations. The bottom line: Because Tencent is huge and owns Riot Games, they are not allowed to have a boardroom at Epic Games, which technically remains their competitor in the video games industry. It’s like letting a big suitcase at Pepsi go to all the important meetings at Coca-Cola. This, according to the Clayton Act, “is a statute that prohibits directors and officers from serving concurrently on competing boards under certain circumstances.”

The two directors who resigned were Ben Feder and David Wallerstein, one said. Bloomberg got the email Confirming releases from Epic Games. Ben Federer’s job title at Tencent for years was President of Global Partnerships, and before that he was CEO of Take-Two Interactive, a major publisher of Tencent. Wallerstein was a senior executive vice president at Tencent until January this year and is currently employed as a “senior consultant”. None of them should have been on board at Epic – at least that’s what the DOJ investigations said. And now it looks like they’ve stepped down, Tencent and Epic to avoid more heat.

“No company or individual has ever admitted liability in connection with this investigation,” says the DOJ with characteristic legal nous. He also added that Tencent has agreed to amend its shareholder agreement with Epic to no longer appoint future Epic board directors. No more boardroom rudeness, corpoboys and corpogars!

Antitrust laws exist to prevent giant companies from establishing monopolies and becoming more powerful than they already are. We’ve seen it in video games Valve was hit with antitrust charges In the past. And Microsoft has been scrutinized by both similar concerns. United States And European Union when working (Finally successful) move to buy Activision Blizzard. Big business will be big.