DOJ Sues AT&T Over Time Warner Merger
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Donald Trump's Justice Department is now suing to block AT&T’s bid for Time Warner, which includes CNN.
The DOJ is drawing limits on corporate power in the fast-evolving media landscape.
Yet, it seems that the government is going to let Trump's friends at Sinclair slide their deal to buy Tribune through with ease.
The NY Times writes that by challenging the deal, the Justice Department is taking an approach to antitrust issues that is starkly different from the Obama administration’s. In 2011, for instance, the department approved a similar deal — Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal — after imposing numerous conditions on the transaction.
“This merger would greatly harm American consumers,” Mr. Delrahim, the assistant attorney general for antitrust, said in a statement. “It would mean higher monthly television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that consumers are beginning to enjoy.”
AT&T said it would defend the proposed deal in court, arguing that companies don’t directly compete against each other and that the government hasn’t challenged a similar kind of merger in decades.
“It defies logic, and it’s unprecedented,” AT&T’s chief executive, Randall L. Stephenson, said in a news conference on Monday after the suit was filed.
The bottom line? The longer this takes, the longer Jeff Zucker has a job at CNN.
