US: AT&T-Time Warner hearing; opening moves focus on POTUS

During a hearing on Friday, February 16, AT&T’s lawyer Daniel Petrocelli complained that CEO Randall Stephenson and his Time Warner counterpart, Jeff Bewkes, had been questioned under oath about their belief that the president was behind the lawsuit, while the companies’ efforts to obtain information about the same subject had been stymied.

Government lawyer Craig Conrath produced a written statement from Makan Delrahim, the head of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust division, attesting that he hadn’t been directed by Trump.

Conrath also argued the lawsuit couldn’t have been motivated by a desire to harm CNN because the network would have continued operating under the settlements the government was willing to accept, such as a sale of Turner Broadcasting.

AT&T is trying to learn if there was any political tampering in the DOJ’s November lawsuit to stop the US$85.4 billion merger, which the agency has said would harm consumers. The government has rejected the company’s request for a list of communications between the White House and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s office and between Sessions and the antitrust division, Petrocelli said.

US District Court Judge Richard Leon, who oversaw the hearing, said he would rule on Tuesday whether the Justice Department must identify any communications.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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