Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota says the US Department of Justice should investigate Amazon’s US$8.45 billion purchase of MGM over antitrust concerns,reported Variety.
“This is a major acquisition that has the potential to impact millions of consumers,” she said Thursday, May 27. “The Department of Justice must conduct a thorough investigation to ensure that this deal won’t risk harming competition.”
Klobuchar’s call for an investigation comes the day after Amazon announced plans to buy the parent company of MGM Studios, a decades-old studio that is home to some of the world’s most popular and beloved films and shows. MGM’s extensive library of more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows could give Amazon an edge in its fight to compete with other streaming competitors like Netflix and Disney+.
Concern over Amazon’s deal with MGM appears to be a bipartisan issue, with several Republicans also voicing disapproval of the sale due to anticompetitive business concerns.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri tweeted on Wednesday that the “sale should not go through. @amazon is already a monopoly platform that owns e-commerce, shipping, grocers & the cloud. They shouldn’t be permitted to buy anything else. Period.”
“This is also a reminder of why we need to fund our antitrust agencies so they can take on investigations of multi-billion dollar deals,” Klobuchar, who chairs the antitrust subcommittee, added. “Our government cannot ensure major corporations are playing by the rules if enforcement agencies are chronically underfunded. My bipartisan legislation, which recently passed through the Judiciary Committee, would give the antitrust agencies additional resources to conduct rigorous reviews of large mergers.”
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