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AT&T Wins Fight With US Over Purchase of Time Warner (reuters.com)
An appeals court has approved AT&T's purchase of Time Warner, despite the Trump administration's drawn-out attempts to block the $85.4 billion acquisition. The U.S. Justice Department said it would not fight the decision. Reuters reports: The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled unanimously in favor of the deal earlier on Tuesday, saying that the government's case that the merger would result in higher consumer prices was "unpersuasive." The decision ended a 15-month effort by the Justice Department to block it. It was AT&T's second major court victory against the Justice Department, setting the stage for the No. 2 wireless carrier to integrate its WarnerMedia business as well as its new Xandr advertising unit.
The deal has been seen as a turning point for a media industry that has been upended by companies like Netflix and Alphabet's Google which put content online with no need for a cable subscription. The merger, which was announced in October 2016, closed on June 14 shortly after Judge Richard Leon ruled the deal was legal under antitrust law. AT&T agreed it would have no role in setting Turner's prices to distributors and the number of Turner employees would remain largely unchanged.
The deal has been seen as a turning point for a media industry that has been upended by companies like Netflix and Alphabet's Google which put content online with no need for a cable subscription. The merger, which was announced in October 2016, closed on June 14 shortly after Judge Richard Leon ruled the deal was legal under antitrust law. AT&T agreed it would have no role in setting Turner's prices to distributors and the number of Turner employees would remain largely unchanged.
America really is in decline.
Larger and larger corporations are coalescing into big, giant. anti-consumer piles of shit.
The government can't control them because the regulatory agencies are all suffering the worst possible for of regulatory capture ... the people in charge ultimately work for the industries they are supposed to regulate.
And yet, people continue to stupidly believe that whatever is good for corporations is good for the country, when nothing could be further from the truth.
America is fast becoming the dystopian future, only now there is no sign of a moral compass and any form of leadership towards progress ... just some shrieking, orange, yeti-pubed douchebag at the helm.
the government's case that the merger would result in higher consumer prices was "unpersuasive."
Strictly speaking "blatantly obvious" and "persuasive" aren't the same thing. It's not technically not persuasion if you already know it.
went something like this.
Thought it was a bit odd that an anti-regulation, pro business admin staffed mostly by same revolving door of ex-Goldman sachs folks we've had around since Reagan would stand in the way of a merger. Dammit, I wish we could get somebody like Liz Warren or Bernie in office along with a matching Congress. They'd put a stop to this crap right quick.
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