The Antitrust Week In Review

Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.

U.S. attorney general urged to consider blocking AT&T deal for Time Warner.  Seven consumer advocacy groups wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday to ask him to consider blocking AT&T’s plan to buy Time Warner on the grounds that it will lead to higher prices and slow innovation in showing video online.  Common Cause, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge and other groups echoed other critics of the deal, including some lawmakers, who say that the $85.4 billion deal would give AT&T, owner of DirecTV, the ability to withhold Time Warner’s content from other outlets and hurt the move to show television shows and movies on the Internet.

Nichicon to Plead Guilty in U.S. to Price-Fixing, Pay $42 Million Fine.  Japan’s Nichicon Corp. will plead guilty to fixing the prices of electrolytic capacitors sold in the United States and elsewhere, and will pay a $42 million fine, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.  The price-fixing conspiracy ran from September 1997 to 2014, and Nichicon participated from about 2001 to 2011, the Justice Department said in its complaint, filed in federal court in San Francisco. Electrolytic capacitors are used in a range of electronic products, including computers, televisions and car engines, to store and regulate electric current.

Newspapers to bid for antitrust exemption to tackle Google and Facebook.  The news industry is to band together to seek a limited antitrust exemption from Congress in an effort to fend off growing competition from Facebook and Google.  Traditional competitors including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as a host of smaller print and online publications, will temporarily set aside their differences this week and appeal to federal lawmakers to let them negotiate collectively with the technology giants to safeguard the industry.

FanDuel, DraftKings scrap troubled merger.  Daily fantasy sports companies FanDuel and DraftKings scrapped a plan to merge on Thursday following a legal challenge by U.S. antitrust enforcers.  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said in June that it would seek to stop the deal because the combined company would control more than 90 percent of the U.S. market for paid daily fantasy sports contests