Economist: Charter/Cox Deal Unlikely to Pose Anticompetitive Threat

for Law & Economics. The newly combined company will need sizable efficiencies to remain viable in the changing marketplace, he said Tuesday. Charter and Cox have little footprint overlap, so the geographic expansion of the combined company would give it greater scale across different regions. The possibility that the FCC's review of the deal could look at the companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion policies exemplifies "the troubling politicization of regulatory processes," he added. "Such mission creep undermines rule-of-law principles and creates regulatory uncertainty that harms investment." He said DOJ and FCC reviews should focus on "demonstrable, transaction-specific competitive harms, rather than abstract concerns about size or concentration." With the two companies having limited geographic overlap and facing intense competition in broadband and video, "the standard for proving harm should be appropriately rigorous."