DOJ Faces Uphill Climb Proving AT&T/TW Concerns, FSF Says
DOJ's claim of possible anticompetitive harms from AT&T's planned buy of Time Warner is theoretically plausible but "suffers from many shortcomings," Free State Foundation's Theodore Bolema wrote Thursday. He said the changing market of cord cutting and subscription VOD makes…
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it less likely anticompetitive strategies that were the focus of Justice's 2011 challenge of Comcast/NBCUniversal are as applicable today. Justice has the challenge of showing the economic efficiency benefits from the deal that would be passed on to consumers are less than the cost of anticompetitive effects, he said. He said the agency will have to show why this vertical merger case is different from past antitrust enforcement where behavioral conditions were sufficient. DOJ didn't comment. FSF has said structural conditions on AT&T/TW go against precedent (see 1711170059).