No, this is not an accurate reading of it. MS appealed the case, and the appeals court threw out the judgement of breakup, while NOT overturning the statement of fact (that MS was engaging in anticompetitive behavior). Throughout that did not get overturned, and still holds to this day.
Ultimately, the Circuit Court overturned Jackson's holding that Microsoft should be broken up as an illegal monopoly. However, the Circuit Court did not overturn Jackson's findings of fact, and held that traditional
antitrust analysis was not equipped to consider software-related practices like browser
tie-ins.
[26] The case was remanded back to the D.C. District Court for further proceedings on this matter, with Judge
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly presiding.
[27]
While they didn't throw out his findings of fact (Not sure why you changed it to statement of facts), it wasn't really necessary to do so, as the result would've been the same regardless. No need to kick the judge while he was down so to speak. His ruling was overturned, and that is what ultimately remains to this day.
Anyway, the initial point was that the vast resources and power of MS do not exceed that of the federal government, for better or worse.
I can go along with that point, and had that actually been your initial point, we wouldn't have had this conversation. But that wasn't really your point, or at least that's not what it appeared to be.
Instead, your initial point was that this acquisition was almost certainly deemed to fail. That most likely MS would abandon the whole thing and walk away. You suggested that the FTC and it's actions today were more authoritative than they are. You then went on to try and correct another person who pointed out (correctly I might add) that other regulators had significantly more authority than the FTC did. Stating that it was US that took on MS and won back in the 90's.
And to all of that. You largely missed the target. No, the FTC doesn't have the same degree of authority as other regulators do such as the CMA or EU. No, MS won't most likely abandon the deal at this point and walk away as that would cost them $3 billion for nothing. No, the actions the FTC took today even prevents MS closing the deal, as they didn't even file an injunction to do so. And finally... Yes, the US did take on MS back in the 90's, but no, they didn't ultimately win that case as it was overturned. You walking it back step by step as "they weren't broken up because they settled", and "well, the statement of fact" (Again wtf?) doesn't change that.