Popular Media

Business as Usual for Antitrust

President Joe Biden’s antitrust enforcers were desperate for a win. While claiming to be tough on antitrust, their track record has been far from impressive. The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have challenged fewer mergers than they did during the Trump administration, and their challenges have rarely been successful. Now, the DOJ’s antitrust division has succeeded in blocking the merger of two publishing houses: Penguin–Random House and Simon & Schuster. Three weeks after the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., handed down an order halting the deal, Penguin’s corporate owner Bertelsmann made it official: the $2.2 billion merger has been scrapped.

Read the full piece here.