On August 27, 2019, two U.S. senators asked the DOJ to investigate the state of competition in the ticketing business, and to extend the DOJ’s consent agreement with Live Nation Entertainment (“Live Nation”), the industry giant that owns Ticketmaster. Background In a letter to Makan Delrahim, the head of the…
On August 20, 2019, the DOJ filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware seeking to block Sabre Corporation’s (“Sabre”) $360 million acquisition of Farelogix, Inc. (“Farelogix”). Complaint The DOJ alleges that Sabre and Farelogix compete head-to-head to provide booking services to airlines. …
On August 20, 2019, it was reported that the states are set to join forces to investigate Big Tech. On the same day, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) said the DOJ is working with a group of more than…
On August 2, 2018, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division announced that it would begin a review of legacy consent decrees “regulat[ing] how certain movie studios distribute films to movie theatres.” The Paramount Consent Decrees have been in place for almost 70 years. U.S. v. Paramount, 334 U.S. 131 (1948). The Supreme…
On June 27, 2108, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced that The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”) agreed to divest 22 regional sports networks (“RSNs”) to resolve antitrust concerns with its approximately $71 billion acquisition of certain assets from Twenty First Century Fox (“21CF”). Speedy Antitrust Approval DOJ’s announcement of…
On June 18, 2018, T-Mobile and Sprint filed initial papers with the FCC. The parties made a number of arguments on why their deal should pass regulatory muster. First, T-Mobile and Sprint argue that they need the deal to compete with the Big Two (AT&T and Verizon) – the combined…
On May 21, 2018, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged the DOJ to review the power that large technology firms such as Google have over the U.S. economy. A “60 Minutes” segment on Sunday devoted to assertions that Alphabet Inc.’s Google wields a destructive monopoly in online search hammered home the…
On April 19, 2018, Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General of DOJ’s Antitrust Division delivered the keynote address at the at the University of Chicago’s Antitrust and Competition Conference. The focus of his remarks was “evidence-based enforcement.” He said that “an evidence-based approach requires enforcement built on credible evidence that a…
On January 26, 2018, the head of the Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim delivered remarks to the NY State Bar where he discussed his views on behavioral remedies and consent decrees. He noted that the Division’s recent consent decrees reflect several provisions designed to ensure the Division can meaningfully enforce them. …
On November 16, 2017, Makan Delrahim, recently confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), delivered a speech on the relationship between antitrust as law enforcement and his goal of reducing regulation. Delrahim explained that effective antitrust enforcement lessens the need…