Mike Coppola
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and three Democrat lawmakers request that the U.S. Dept. of Justice investigate Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) deal over alleged anticompetitive behavior a year after it was completed.
“The antitrust laws seek to promote consumer choice, product variety, and industry innovation,” Warren along Joaquin Castro (D-TX), David Cicilline (D-RI) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote in a letter to the DOJ on Friday. “Accordingly, if a consummated merger results in dramatically less available content and discourages innovation, the merger should be reassessed.”
Warren and the three representatives claim that the Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) deal has led to reduced consumer choice and harmed workers in affected labor markets.
Following the deal, WBD announced job cuts and product cancellations including cancelling several titles, including “Batgirl ” “Gordita Chronicles,” “Demimonde,” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” according to the letter.
“Warner Bros. Discovery has reduced the content available to consumers and will likely continue to limit consumer choice without adequate comp,” the lawmakers wrote.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) was created a year ago when Discovery combined with AT&T’s (T) WarnerMedia unit.
Sen. Warren has been busy trying to oppose consolidation and has targeted other deals in the past year, including transaction in the healthcare, banking and aerospace industries. Warren wrote a letter to the FTC in January expressing her concerns about Amgen’s (AMGN) plan to buy Horizon Therapeutics (HZNP). In late January Warren urged the FTC to block L3Harris’s (LHX) planned acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne (AJRD), arguing it would reduce competition in the defense industry.