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For the most part, you either stop a merger before it happens, or it's permanent. There's nothing binding the company to any claims that it will lower prices. N
by bachmeier 7y ago
For the most part, you either stop a merger before it happens, or it's permanent. There's nothing binding the company to any claims that it will lower prices. Nobody honestly thought this merger would lower prices, not the DOJ, not anyone at AT&T or Time Warner.
Note that the exact quote is "enable the merged company to reduce prices". They may not have followed that with the obvious "but the merged company plans to take advantage of its new market power to raise prices".
- mbreese 7y agoThere could have been a consent decree (not sure if that's the right term in this context...) that in exchange for agreement to allow the merger, would have bound the company to keep prices fixed or reduced for a certain period of time. But, aside from something like that, I don't think there is much that could have been done on the regulatory side to stop the company from not following through on their claims.