Federal Judge Richard Leon is not a household name, but he is one of the most powerful men in Washington. As senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Leon’s past decisions have altered the fate of some of America’s biggest companies, and his upcoming decision holds the key to the future of the media industry itself.
Leon made history in 2011 by approving the $38 billion Comcast-NBCU merger, positioning the new company as the largest cable and broadcast entity in the U.S. More importantly, his ruling established a hard-to-overlook legal precedent, which has influenced antitrust law and competition policy ever since.
Today, Judge Leon presides over yet another ground-breaking case with similar themes: United States v. AT&T and Time Warner. A mega merger valued at $108.7 billion, the deal seeks to marry a major content distributor (AT&T) with a leading video content producer (Time Warner). Beyond the litigants, the media and communications sector anxiously await the judge’s ruling, and with good reason.
First, the case marks the first time since the Carter administration (1977) that the U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block a vertical merger (i.e., between two companies that do not compete)…..
Guest author Adonis Hoffman is Chairman of Business in the Public Interest. He is a member of The Media Institute’s Board of Trustees and First Amendment Advisory Council. His complete article appeared in The Hill on Feb. 19, 2018, and can be viewed here.