Second Update, 2:34 Pm Pt: The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission will review merger guidelines in the wake of President Joe Biden’s executive order, promising “a hard look to determine whether they are overly permissive,” in the words of a joint statement.
That has obvious potential implications for some pending media mergers, including Amazon’s proposed acquisition of MGM, and Discovery’s combination with WarnerMedia.
Much depends on just what any new guidelines are, but it’s pretty clear that the political environment, at least, is far different that it was ten years ago, when Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal was approved, and perhaps even from a few years ago, when The Walt Disney Co. got the greenlight to acquire many of the Fox assets.
Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute, noted that the DOJ and FTC will be looking at both horizontal and vertical merger guidelines.
That has obvious potential implications for some pending media mergers, including Amazon’s proposed acquisition of MGM, and Discovery’s combination with WarnerMedia.
Much depends on just what any new guidelines are, but it’s pretty clear that the political environment, at least, is far different that it was ten years ago, when Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal was approved, and perhaps even from a few years ago, when The Walt Disney Co. got the greenlight to acquire many of the Fox assets.
Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute, noted that the DOJ and FTC will be looking at both horizontal and vertical merger guidelines.
- 7/9/2021
- by Ted Johnson
- Deadline Film + TV
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