States make last-ditch effort to stop the Paramount ‘media behemoth’
Lauren Feiner is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform.
A dozen state attorneys general are trying to block the $110 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery they warn would raise movie prices and crush cable TV distributors.
The states — California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington — filed suit on Monday, arguing the combination would illegally harm competition and create a “media behemoth.” Last month, the Justice Department declined to block the merger in a decision that The Wall Street Journalreported surprised career staff who were leaning toward recommending a lawsuit. In an exit interview with Politico, former DOJ acting antitrust chief Omeed Assefi rejected the report as “not...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to theverge.com. To see the full text click HERE
