AT&T is ready to go to court and is "confident" it will prevail in its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner.
The telecom giant on Monday challenged a planned lawsuit by the Justice Department as "a radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent," said David McAtee, AT&T general counsel and senior executive vice president.
AT&T is "confident that the Court will reject the Government’s claims and permit this merger under longstanding legal precedent.”
The Justice Department was expected to
announce its plans Monday afternoon, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the development. Several media outlets reported that the DOJ's announcement would involve AT&T.
A suit to block the merger suggests the combination of the largest U.S. pay-TV provider and No. 2 wireless carrier with a media company that includes Turner Broadcasting (CNN, TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies and TruTV), HBO, and Warner Bros. film studio was seen by the DOJ as too much connectivity and content under AT&T's umbrella.
Prospects for the merger, proposed by AT&T in October 2016, have been blurred since the ascendance of then-candidate Donald Trump, who during the presidential campaign said the deal would concentrate too much power in the company.
While in office, Trump has regularly labeled CNN as "fake news" and in February his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner met with Time Warner executives and voiced concerns about what the administration considered as slanted coverage from CNN.
Earlier this month, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the company was preparing to make its case for the merger in court. "We’ve been working on this for a year (and) we are prepared to litigate now," he said during The New York Times' DealBook conference. "We feel comfortable this transaction could be litigated, a hearing conducted and an answer provided well before that April 22 (2018) deadline" for both companies to walk away from the deal, he said.
Those comments came after media reports that the Justice Department might requirethe sale of some assets such as Turner, CNN itself or or satellite TV service DirecTV.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.
