WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 22: President Donald Trump listens to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson during the “American Leadership in Emerging Technology” event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday, June 22, 2017. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Washington PostAT&T was dealt a blow Tuesday in its defense of the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block its purchase of Time Warner.
The judge overseeing the case rejected AT&T’s request to access communications between the White House and the Attorney General and the DOJ’s antitrust division regarding the deal.
AT&T requested the communications as part of its defense against the lawsuit aimed at blocking the $85 billion merger. The trial is expected to start in March. AT&T argues that the DOJ has unfairly targeted the company, because President Donald Trump doesn’t like CNN, which is owned by Time Warner. As a candidate for president, Trump vowed to block the merger. And he has repeatedly called CNN “fake news.”
But Judge Richard Leon said that AT&T and Time Warner “have fallen short” in showing that the DOJ has singled it out and that its enforcement has been “selective.”
“We respect the judge’s decision and look forward to the upcoming trial,” Dan Petrocelli, lead trial attorney for both Time Warner and AT&T, said in a statement.
At a hearing Friday the DOJ said that politics played no role in its decision to block the merger. It said that it has legitimate antitrust concerns that the merger would harm consumers. AT&T has argued that the DOJ has approved other similar mergers, including the Comcast/NBC Universal merger, which closed in 2011. AT&T says that the merger would not result in higher prices for consumers and that the deal is essential to keep AT&T competitive in an evolving market.
The ruling is a blow to AT&T’s defense of the lawsuit. While the company can still try to argue at trial that it’s being unfairly targeted, it seems clear that the judge may not be buying it. Instead, he seems to be siding with the DOJ that there are legitimate antitrust concerns.
“As counsel for the Government explained at length during [Friday’s] hearing, history belies the notion that this action is the first and only time that the Government has found an antitrust problem with a proposed vertical merger or insisted on a structural remedy as a condition to settlement,” he wrote. “So while it may, indeed, be a rare breed of horse, it is not exactly a unicorn!”
The DOJ has already given AT&T a log of communications between the White House and the antitrust division. AT&T was requesting the actual emails.
Consumer advocacy groups, like Public Knowledge, agree with the DOJ that the merger is bad for consumers.
“This ruling demonstrates that the court refuses to be distracted by politics and instead is focused on the facts and the law,” Gene Kimmelman, president and CEO of Public Knowledge said in a statement. “This is a great result for consumers worried about the danger of higher prices and harm to online competition likely to result from this merger.”
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