AT&T and Time Warner will head to court on March 19 to fight against the Justice Department’s attempt to block the companies’ proposed $85 billion merger.
The antitrust trial date was set by a judge in Washington at a Thursday pre-trial hearing,路透社报道。
The March date is after AT&T’s requested start date of Feb. 20, but before the DOJ’s desired date of May 7.
It also falls before the April 22 deadline in the companies’ merger agreement, but Judge Richard Leon indicated a decision isn’t likely to be ready by then, according to Reuters.
他说：“ 4月22日不现实。”
AT＆T和时代华纳首次宣布了该交易，并于2016年10月获得了智利，墨西哥和巴西政府的监管部门批准，但在11月下旬受到了DOJ的反托拉斯诉讼。
司法部声称这笔交易可能会损害美国的消费者并阻碍竞争。它还说，合并可以允许AT＆T控制Warner流行的网络，例如HBO，CNN和TBS，以迫使竞争对手每年支付数亿美元以支付分销权。
AT＆T是美国第二号无线运营商，也拥有DirectV，称诉讼“是几十年来反托拉斯先例的激进而莫名其妙的出发事件”。
在报道说司法部可能采取行动以阻止交易的报道后，富国银行高级分析师詹妮弗·弗里茨奇（Jennifer Fritzche）指出，法律或先例批准诉讼的法律或先例都没有改变，该部门仍将面临“面对同样的上坡战役如果起诉阻止它，请在法庭上。”
在法庭文件中，AT＆T断言该交易是“亲竞争的”和“亲消费者”，称这是“经典的垂直交易”，不会从市场上消除任何竞争对手。
The telecom giant also said in a court filing that Time Warner’s Turner unit had already offered distributors agreements that forbid Turner programming from going dark during any potential arbitration over licensing terms for seven years after the deal closes.
提交以下：Industry regulations
