Latest in antitrust

Makan Delrahim, the Donald Trump appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice, who heads the antitrust division and led the lawsuit seeking to block AT&T’s Time Warner acquisition, has a new target: tech giants. Delrahim’s boss, Attorney General William Barr, has increased rhetoric questioning tech company methods in…

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, believes a degree of regulatory scrutiny is “fair” given the company’s sprawling scale, but he insists it is “not a monopoly.” He made the comments to CBS News (see the video below) as Apple unveiled a range of new products and services at its developers conference in San Jose on Monday. On the…

Makan Delrahim, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division, said the DOJ’s legal defeat in its long quest to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner was disappointing but did bear some fruit on appeal. “You learn more from losing than from winning,” Delrahim said in a speech at a Washington conference…

The European Union has accepted promises from Sky and Hollywood major studios not to engage in “geoblocking” of their content, ending a years-long antitrust case without fines or punitive action. The landmark outcome will open national pay-TV markets that had long existed in their own silos, allowing consumers across…

The Department of Justice said today that it has reached a settlement with six broadcast television companies, including Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. and Tribune Media Company, to end the unlawful agreements to share non-public competitive information. The Justice Department's Antitrust Division filed a civil…

The three-judge panel that will hear arguments December 6 in the federal appeal of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner has been selected. Judges Judith W. Rogers, Robert L. Wilkins and David B. Sentelle will be on the bench in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to weigh in on the Department of Justice effort to undo the…

In a speech today at the Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium, Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim outlined plans to “modernize” the merger review process, making it shorter and more effective. “There is widespread agreement that significant merger reviews are taking longer to complete.” he said…

AT&T has filed its response to the government’s appeal of its acquisition of Time Warner, a 58-page catalog of what the company says are the failures of the initial case. The response (read it HERE) derides the Department of Justice complaint, filed last November and resoundingly rejected by a federal judge in June…

In its appeal of the federal ruling against its effort to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, the Department of Justice is seeking to have certain transcripts unsealed. The DOJ filed a formal request to have the contents of “bench conferences” revealed. During those moments, when attorneys consulted with the judge and…

Antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice have proposed an expedited process for their appeal of a federal judge’s landmark decision last month allowing AT&T to merge with Time Warner. Final briefs in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals case are due Oct. 18, according to terms agreed upon by both sides and…

UPDATED to include comments from AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson: Not so fast, AT&T. After a flurry of corporate blue-skying over the past month since the official close of the company’s merger with Time Warner, antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice have filed an appeal of the judge’s decision that allowed it…

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., today cleared the way for the planned merger of AT&T and Time Warner in a landmark antitrust ruling that will likely accelerate the pace of media consolidation. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon accepted the survival-of-the-fittest argument AT&T and Time Warner executives made…