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Bloomberg
AT&T Inc. lashed out at the US antitrust lawsuit against the company’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Inc., saying the government’s own economic expert determined the deal would raise prices for pay-TV subscribers by just 45 cents a month.
The telecommunications giant derided the Justice Department’s case, saying the government’s own analysis shows the deal would cause minimal consumer harm, according to a filing in federal court in Washington. AT&T counters that the merger with the owner of CNN and HBO would allow it to more effectively compete against rivals like Comcast Corp. and Netflix Inc. to the benefit of consumers.
“The government’s modeled price increase is so negligible that, given the inherent uncertainty in that predictive exercise, it is not meaningfully distinguishable from zero,†AT&T said in the filing, which Time Warner joined.
The two sides are jostling over the deal’s merits as they prepare to go to trial starting on March 19 in Washington. The case represents a rare legal challenge to a tie-up of two companies that operate in different parts of the same supply chain. The US claims that for AT&T, as the owner of DirecTV and the largest US pay-TV provider, its control of Time Warner’s programming would give it more leverage in content negotiations with rival distributors and cause prices to rise. The deal is an “unacceptable threat to competition” and would allow AT&T to stifle growth of online competitors, the US said.