Microsoft Fires Back at Antitrust Claims Over Valve Price Fix Deal

Microsoft has filed a motion to dismiss claims that it accepted kickbacks from Valve Corp. as part of an illegal deal to match prices of PC games sold on their competing stores.

The company argues that the game distribution deal at the center of the plaintiffs' claims is a common vertical agreement between a game publisher and a game distributor, not a per se illegal horizontal price-fixing agreement.

Microsoft contends that the relationship between the companies mischaracterizes the relationship between Microsoft and Valve, and therefore, the claims against them are unfounded.