The Federal Trade Commission has posted closing letters to its site that show it has closed its Antitrust investigation into the Electronic Arts/Take Two merger.

Upon further review of this matter, it now appears that no additional action by the Commission is warranted at this time. Accordingly, the investigation has been closed.

So.. essentially EA are free to pursue their merger. Or would be, had they not let their bid expire on Monday.

With the FTC investigation put to bed, though, EA are now able to enter into private negotiations with Take Two. Take Two is now to give EA its three-year financial forecasts and the game will continue...

An EA merger with Take-Two gets U.S. antitrust OK [Reuters via GamePolitics]

Electronic Arts has satisfied the Federal Trade Commission's extensive second request for information in the publisher's bid to acquire Take-Two, the company revealed through an SEC filing today - and, pursuant to EA's agreement with the FTC, it won't "consummate" any acquisition before August 21.

That is, unless the FTC finishes its investigation sooner. It's now got the information it needs from EA in its quest to determine possible antitrust issues, but Take-Two has appeared to struggle with fulfiling the broad-ranging request; when it was initially uncompliant, the District Court of Washington, D.C. had demanded it show cause, with Take-Two risking an injunction if it failed to pony up.

However, Tiffany Steckler of EA's corporate communications said that the August 21 timeline applies regardless of what Take-Two does:

Take-Two has resolved its issues with the Federal Trade Commission, clearing at least one regulatory obstacle for Electronic Arts' acquisition bid, the company revealed in an FTC filing this morning.

The U.S. District Court of Washington D.C. had asked Take-Two to show why it wasn't complying with the FTC's broad-ranging information request as it investigates potential antitrust issues for the possible combination, probably regarding the companies' sports portfolios.

For its part, Take-Two had claimed that complying with the full scope of the FTC's requests would have been too expensive and labour-intensive, and asked for "reasonable limits".

Nonprofit advocacy group The Entertainment Consumers' Association is hailing the results of a recent Federal Trade Commission study that showed 80 percent retailer compliance with the ESRB's ratings system, a continual year-over-year increase that puts games ahead of other media in self-regulating mature content.

ECA President Hal Halpin called the results, which improved significantly over 2007, "an extraordinary accomplishment," praising retailers' commitment to keep M-rated games out of kids' hands. "Perhaps most impressive is the incredible reversal in their failure rate over such a short period of time and with a comparatively new rating system," Halpin said.

About 20 percent of underage teens were able to buy Mature-rated games during a recent nationwide undercover shopper survey conducted by the FTC, down more than half from last year, the FTC reported today.

The survey, which also looked at R-rated movies, DVDs and "Parental Advisory"-labelled music, found that video games had the best enforcement rate.

The FTC also broke out its statistics by retailer. GameStop topped the list with a 94 percent enforcement rate, while Hollywood Video came in last with 60 percent enforcement.