U.S. anti-trust chief talks AT&T/Time Warner just ahead of judge's decision
Makan Delrahim, who spearheaded the Justice Department's case against AT&T's proposed merger with Time Warner, spoke on Tuesday morning and made a final pitch to Judge Richard Leon, who this afternoon will decide the fate of the deal.
Delrahim, the assistant attorney general for the antitrust division of the DOJ, revealed a surprise in his speech. He noted that when Justice was preparing its case against AT&T that the department received a curious request from an unnamed anti-trust officer from a state that Delrahim also did not identify.
“They told us they would only join our case if we provided written assurances that no divestiture would go to Fox or to Rupert Murdoch,” Delrahim said in his speech.
Delrahim said he rejected the request “because it would have been unconstitutional to accede to it.”
The head of the Justice Department antitrust unit went on to say the division has been under pressure to disregard consumer harm and focus on protecting the wider market, democracy or freedom of speech.
Delrahim, speaking at an Open Markets Institute event in Washington D.C., has argued that AT&T should divest a large portion of the proposed combination, suggesting a sale of DirecTV or Turner Broadcasting, which houses CNN.
He noted the Justice Department negotiated the largest-ever divestiture package from pharmaceutical giants Bayer and Monsanto.
“The harms of that transaction [AT&T], following a consumer welfare rubric, were simply too great to accept, or try to fix with ineffective behavioral remedies,” meaning rules governing the competitive behavior of a company.
He reiterated the view that the merger would be harmful to consumers because it would, “unlawfully raise prices for cable TV subscribers and harm online innovation."
Delrahim closed by saying anti-trust enforcers would not benefit by “allegations that would flow from abandoning the consumer welfare standard.”
While there is a belief that President Donald Trump may have interfered in the Justice Department's thought process on the mega deal, Delrahim added: “Whether it is Kochs or George Soros or anyone else, political positions should have no role in determining the propriety of antitrust enforcement actions.”
Delrahim concluded his speech with a quote from former President Ronald Reagan. “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”