Bloomberg reported on Saturday, November 4, that sources familiar with the matter have informed it that the Department of Justice’s merger review of Time Warner and AT&T’s US$85.4 billion deal is slowing down while the new antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, takes a hands-on role.
Delrahim has been meeting with parties involved to remedy the competitive issues, but will file a lawsuit to block the deal if antitrust concerns can’t be solved.
While the deal had been expected to win approval as soon as last month with the companies originally scheduling the agreement to last until October 22, 2017, and AT&T last week extended the termination date of the merger agreement “for a short period of time.”
The discussions between the parties were described by multiple people involved in the process as normal for an antitrust review of a big, complex merger.
While negotiations with the companies before Delrahim joined the review were focused on conduct remedies, Delrahim may explore asset sales to address competitive harm, according to one of the people.
Full Content: Bloomberg
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