The Justice Department (DOJ) and AT&T are set to face off in court for the first time Thursday in what is shaping up to be a contentious fight over a proposed merger with Time Warner.
The DOJ last month filed suit to block the merger of telecom giant AT&T with entertainment powerhouse Time Warner.
Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has scheduled a pre-trial hearing date for the lawsuit on Dec. 7.
The sparks are already flying with the two sides unable to agree on a start date for the trial.
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AT&T wants a relatively quick Feb. 20 start date, presumably to give it enough time to wrap up the merger by an April 22 termination date.
The company had planned on wrapping up the purchase by Oct. 22 but extended that twice after regulators stalled on approving the deal.
The DOJ, though, is seeking a later start date for the antitrust trial: May 7.
Regulators are seeking to block the $85 billion deal on the grounds it would give AT&T too much power over the TV market. Time Warner owns large companies like HBO, Warner Bros. and Turner Media, which includes prominent networks such as CNN, TNT and TBS.
The DOJ argues that leverage, combined with AT&T’s ownership of DirecTV could give it unprecedented power to force competitors into potentially unfair deals.
The deal could harm AT&T’s “rivals by forcing them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for Time Warner’s networks, and it would use its increased power to slow the industry’s transition to new and exciting video distribution models that provide greater choice for consumers,” the DOJ said in its complaint.
AT&T has already offered a formal response to the DOJ lawsuit, calling its deal “pro-competitive” and “pro-consumer.” It argues that the media landscape is radically different after the rise of online streaming options with Netflix and Hulu, and that the DOJ’s analysis doesn’t understand the new market.
In its defense, AT&T said it has already offered to give third-party distributors the same arbitration protections that were given in the Comcast-NBC Universal merger. It says those protections would ensure that distributors can’t be strong-armed into unfair deals.
That claim has fallen short with Makan Delrahim, the head of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Delrahim has said merger conditions like those are difficult to enforce and shouldn’t be considered when reviewing a deal.
Hovering over the fight though is President Trump’s long feud with one of Time Warner’s networks: CNN.
Trump has long blasted the cable news network, claiming it is “fake news” and biased against his administration.
Last month, the DOJ and AT&T publicly feuded over whether reports that regulators told AT&T it would only approve the merger if the company agreed to divest CNN were accurate.
Sources at the DOJ told The Hill last month that they had rejected an offer from AT&T to approve the merger in exchange for spinning off CNN. But AT&T executives denied that they had any plans to ever let go of the cable network.
The decision to block the merger has sparked concerns about potential political interference in the review process, something administration officials have denied.
On Wednesday, one day before AT&T and the DOJ meet in court, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will deliver remarks on competition policy and antitrust at an event on monopolies held by left-leaning think tank, Open Markets.
Warren’s speech comes as tech companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon, also face increasing scrutiny from antitrust regulators.
Warren, in a speech last year, pushed for regulators to get tougher on many Silicon Valley giants.
Lawmakers will be busy with tax and spending issues in the coming week. Congress must pass a government spending bill to avoid a shutdown on Dec. 8.
But there are also a number of tech issues on the docket.
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s panel on space will hold a hearing on NASA’s plans for its next four telescopes at 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
On Thursday at 2 p.m., the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subcommittee on IT will hold a hearing on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ cybersecurity systems.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight subcommittee will examine cybersecurity in the energy sector on Friday at 9 a.m.
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