A panel of federal judges has consolidated 17 lawsuits accusing Sinclair Broadcast Group and other media companies of scheming to artificially raise prices for local television advertisements, reported the Daily Record.
Cases pending in federal court in Maryland and Illinois will be combined with 15 related cases and heard in Illinois, a panel on multidistrict litigation ordered last week.
“The actions commonly allege that the conspiracy was effectuated by sharing competitively sensitive information through … advertising sales teams in order to raise advertising prices to supracompetitive levels,” said the order, filed Tuesday.
The complaint comes as the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is actively investigating the defendants’ conduct after its recent review of the now-defunct merger between Sinclair and Tribune.
