Latest in antitrust

The Justice Department will ask a federal court to eliminate the Paramount consent decrees, the 71-year-old restrictions on major distributors’ control of the exhibition pipeline. The elimination of the decrees could alter the dynamics of the business, and perhaps lead to further consolidation. But the DOJ, which has…

Comcast is facing an antitrust lawsuit from a Denver regional sports network, which claims that the cable giant is using its market power to try to extract much more favorable terms that would put it out of business. Altitude Sports and Entertainment, which produces and telecasts games from the the Colorado Avalanche…

Attorneys general from 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico appeared in front of the Supreme Court on Monday to unveil a major antitrust investigation of Google, the latest scrutiny in Washington facing the tech giant. The investigation, which involves top state legal officials from both parties…

Facebook, already under scrutiny for its data practices and vulnerability to malevolent global forces intent on weaponizing its networks, is now facing antitrust investigations in eight states and the District of Columbia. Among the areas the states will investigate are Facebook’s impact on advertising prices, data…

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…