Issue 72
A topic. All topics.
Antitrust
Concentration and merger review, and a decade-long case that ended after a phone call.
What the record shows
The Wall Street Journal reported in August that the president personally called the Justice Department and told it to settle its antitrust case against Live Nation, a case more than a decade in the making. Most of the 33 states and the District of Columbia that had joined the suit refused to sign the settlement. The Justice Department called the Journal's account of how the deal came together categorically false in material respects. It did not dispute that the call took place.
Twelve states sued to block Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which puts CBS and CNN under one owner. Paramount settled with them in September, agreeing to a board overseeing editorial independence at CNN and CBS News, and by 1 October a federal judge had approved the consent decree.
Standing summary, carried forward and rewritten as the coverage moves. Every claim is sourced either to a dated edition below or to the named body that made the finding.