Mixed feelings here… DOJ was right to challenge this merger (and the prior similar ones should have been prohibited, such as Comcast’s) but they clearly did it because Trump was mad at CNN, and this was payback. So it was a misuse of government power.
My guess is that this fact, clear to nearly everyone played a big part in the eventual decision.
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you
The TV Company
The Phone Company
The Online Company
Choice is for Chumps
Apparently, the judges didn’t bother to read the law. Or they live in a cave.
(Hard to believe that the Trump maladministration wanted seriously to overturn the merger.)
This time the double-negative editing mistake belongs to the AP. It should say that the Trump Administration failed to prove that the merger will harm consumers or completion. Either that or the Court of Appeals just decided to flip the basic premise of antitrust law.
I had a professor who said that the best thing was when someone would do the right thing for the right reason, but the next best thing was when someone would do that right thing for the wrong reason. The worst thing was when someone did the wrong thing for the right reason, because you couldn’t reason with him.
Trump may have acted for the wrong reason, but you are right–the merger should have been challenged, and overturned.
We need a new era of trust-busting.
Oh, they’ve read the law. But the law in question is the malignant tumor Robert Bork injected into antitrust law decades ago with his “new thinking” on market power, still neutralizing the Sherman Act, as intended, all of these decades later.
Perhaps CNN can now let that Isgur person go, then?
Tangential, but FFS, AP, it’s not “the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington” as if we had one federal court of appeals and it was located in Washington.
It was the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (a/k/a “the D.C. Circuit”) one of two federal courts of appeals located in D.C., each of which being unique for having specialist jurisdiction rather than general jurisdiction like the other eleven, count 'em, eleven federal courts of appeals.
This thing AP does where it thinks it’s readers are too stupid to be given accurate information and it’s better to tell them something inaccurate than add ten or fifteen words of explanation is one of the reasons the entire editorial staff ought to be sacked and replaced by people from outside the organization.
Also, it’s still “pled,” not “pleaded” you morons.
I can’t believe I’m on the Trump Administration’s side but, they were right to oppose
This is kind of a lose-lose case. I’m glad that DOJ’s abjectly and nakedly political attempt to seek retribution against Time Warner-ATT because of CNN’s political coverage and ATT’s unwillingness to pay a sufficiently exorbitant bribe to Trump was defeated in court. That said, I think our anti-trust law has gone completely out of whack and I want fewer mergers of otherwise financially healthy entities and more regulation. I would like to see a more serious concentration of economic power analysis in these decisions and would prefer more regulation of corporations to make sure that the rules are being followed and consumers are being protected. But that’s for the next administration and Congress to deal with. I like mergers where it’s one entity buying up a financially struggling entity that has a lot of good assets and talent. I don’t like mergers which lead to concentration of economic power and disadvantage consumers and the general public. I would also like to see more government involvement in big mergers that have a national security or important public policy impact, a type of public private partnership were the public has a stake in a merged entity.
Yes, let’s get to busting up these conglomerates just as soon as we kick the Russians out of the Senate and their stooge out of the White House.
Until then, anything that kicks the moron’s ass is a good thing.
AT&T and Time Warner failed to properly compensate and provided adequate emoluments to Preshitident Skanky-Manslut and the Trump Organization to enable this merger. The merger also distasteful and unlawful because CNN, a fake news organization and enemy of the people, employs the banned journalist Jim Acosta.
AT&T has asserted the merger will save it money on content from Turner Broadcasting, enabling it to reduce charges to its DirecTV customers by at least $78 million a year.
My thoughts and prayers to DirectTV subscribers.
I think we’ll just stay with YouTubeTV.
Or the Trump admin is being more upfront about what they really want to come out of these things…
What are their thoughts on the Trump-Russia merger?
Yes I agree we need to bust the big, bigger players in all facets of business. However, with changes happening at a rapid pace these companies are merging to survive as each is seeing major market collapse. Take cable for example, my family were pioneers in cable back in the late 40s and as kids bitched when the family moved to a new city where there was only 2 TV stations, as small town hicks we had 8. So I’ve seen cable from infancy to mature to old and fading. With that said, I pulled the plug some 8 years ago and started to stream when it was truly difficult, now it is so easy I don’t understand why anyone would want satellite or cable along with the expense. I can also say the same with phone services. These are obsolete businesses and I’d let them merge until they fall apart. Bigger in this case I believe does not result in savings but rather bloat which brings their demise along quicker.
What can I say? I’m old and stuck in my ways. I still watch TV.