Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim talks antitrust-Full Recode Interview
Posted by Recode
Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim talks antitrust-Full Recode Interview
By Eric Johnson
On the latest episode of Recode Decode, Makan Delrahim — the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division — sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher. They discussed everything from tech regulation to biotech to the Justice Department’s attempt to halt the AT&T/Time-Warner merger.
It lost that attempt, but is appealing the ruling. Delrahim explained why he was surprised by the ruling of the district court judge, which called it “implausible” that a subsidiary of the merged corporation would change its business model to benefit the parent corporation.
“Any of those subsidiaries, every single day and three times on Wednesdays, you’d be willing to give up $1 to get $3,” he said. “Who wouldn’t? But [the judge] said, ‘No, they’ll make independent financial decisions,’ but that independence goes away when they’re owned by the same company and have one profit-and-loss balance sheet.”
He also disputed the notion that the Justice Department only sought to stop the merger because President Trump — who appointed Delrahim in 2017 — has harshly criticized Time-Warner-owned CNN.
“It makes no sense that the merger action was brought because of somehow an animus to CNN, because if you actually logically think about the case, what we were arguing was to have Time-Warner distribute Tribune, which includes CNN, as broadly as possible, because our theory is, if it’s merged then you won’t distribute broadly,” Delrahim said.
“There was a major PR effort by AT&T in this case and it was salacious enough that if people were not familiar with antitrust law and exactly what we were arguing, ‘Oh, this might be,’” he added. “But it really wasn’t and had nothing to do with it.”
Featured News
Geradin Partners Expands Paris Office with Key Hire
Aug 30, 2024 by
CPI
Judge Accuses Google of ‘Clear Abuse’ in Antitrust Case Over Deleted Employee Chats
Aug 29, 2024 by
CPI
Hong Kong Cleaning Company Employee Charged in Historic Antitrust Investigation Case
Aug 29, 2024 by
CPI
Inside the Yelp Suit: Allegations of Google’s Abuse of Search Power
Aug 29, 2024 by
CPI
AI Safety Bill Clears Hurdle in California, Heads to Governor’s Desk
Aug 29, 2024 by
CPI
Antitrust Mix by CPI
Antitrust Chronicle® – State Attorneys General
Aug 22, 2024 by
CPI
CPI Talks… …With Attorney General Phil Weiser
Aug 22, 2024 by
CPI
The Bipartisan Miracle of State Antitrust Enforcement
Aug 22, 2024 by
Gwendolyn J. Lindsay Cooley
Recent Developments in State Antitrust Enforcement: Agriculture and Food Markets
Aug 22, 2024 by
Elizabeth R. Odette
State Attorneys General: Stewards of Consumer Health and Welfare
Aug 22, 2024 by
Brooke Howlett Lovrovich