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Comcast to Meet With DOJ This Week to Try and Save Merger

Last week reports emerged suggesting that Comcast's acquisition of Time Warner Cable would be rejected by the Department of Justice, agency lawyers dotting the i's and crossing the t's on a plan to reject the deal sometime in the next few weeks. A report in the Wall Street Journal paints a more hopeful story for Comcast, one in which Time Warner Cable and Comcast executives plan to meet with DOJ officials this Wednesday to save the deal by trying to hammer out some new conditions.

The report suggests that DOJ attorneys are concerned with Comcast's failures to live up to merger conditions for its last deal, the 2011 acquisition of NBC Universal. Meanwhile sources claim Comcast would be willing to walk away from the deal if regulators require it give the ok to the FCC's recent reclassification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II:
quote:
Another factor is the FCC’s decision to impose utility-style regulations on Internet service earlier this year to make sure broadband providers treat all Web traffic equally. If regulators require Comcast to live under the new “net neutrality” policies regardless of whether they are held up in court to win deal approval, Comcast may walk away from the acquisition, people familiar with the matter said. Comcast wouldn’t owe Time Warner Cable any breakup fee if it were to abandon the deal.
Despite the Journal's marginally more rosy narrative, the deal certainly sounds as if it's very much on thin ice. A coalition of deal critics argued last week that no number of conditions, no matter how well conceived, could make the acquisition better for consumers.

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ham3843
join:2015-01-15
USA

2 recommendations

ham3843

Member

DO JUSTICE!

In NO way should this merger go through like the others here have mentioned it isn't about making the company better, benefiting the customer, it is about a few
Ivory Tower types making a personal fortune off this merger.

FCC and DOJ do the right thing and tell Comcast and TWC NO merger, not now, not
tomorrow, not ever.