Shares in Sprint and T-Mobile ticked up late in Friday’s trading day after The New York Times reported that Department of Justice regulators are close to blessing the companies’ $26 billion merger. T-Mobile closed at $74.90, up less than 1%, while Sprint jumped 3% to close at $7.01. The stocks have see-sawed in recent…

UPDATED with news of House committee probe. The Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee plans to investigate giant tech companies, a development that follows reports over the weekend that Google and Amazon are about to get closer regulatory scrutiny. The committee promises a “bipartisan look at competition in…

UPDATE with closing stock price. Sinclair Broadcast Group stock hit the stratosphere on Monday — bucking the day’s downward trend on Wall Street to gain nearly 35% — as the company’s CEO touted the company’s deal to acquire the former Fox regional sports networks. Shares in Sinclair rocketed to an all-time high of…

The White House has declined a request by two House Democrats for documents that could show whether President Donald Trump tried to block AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. White House counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter dated Monday to Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and antitrust subcommittee…

Maybe it's because Donald Trump likes to use Game of Thrones imagery as props, but the Department of Justice today has conclusively given up on its long running effort to stop AT&T acquiring Time Warner. "We are grateful that the Court of Appeals considered our objections to the District Court opinion," said DOJ…

More than a year after government regulators sued AT&T to block the Time Warner merger, the media business trial of the century reaches a pivotal moment Thursday in Washington with oral arguments in the government’s appeal. Golden Globe nomination reactions and the usual end-of-year scramble will be preoccupying the…

Like a gust of wind reigniting a dying ember on a dry hillside, President Donald Trump has inflamed long-simmering tension between Comcast and a cable trade group still unhappy with its 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal. The American Cable Association, which reps small and mid-size cable and broadband providers (and…

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…

The long and winding journey of one of the most contested mergers in the history of the media business will take a major step toward its legal conclusion in December. The D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals said judges will hear oral arguments in the United States v. AT&T beginning at 9:30AM ET on Thursday…

Disney has offered concessions to European regulators in order to gain approval of its acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox. The European Commission confirmed the move today and said it was extending its deadline for reviewing the deal to November 11 from October 19. It did not provide details about what Disney has…

UPDATED with additional court filings. In the latest salvo in the two-year-old saga of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner — which has technically closed but still faces a legal challenge — the Department of Justice systematically blasted the company’s counter-claims. Regulators’ 35-page response to AT&T’s reply brief…

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…