MUMBAI: 20 months after AT&T’s announced its potential deal for Time Warner, the US District Court for the District of Columbia has cleared the merger between the two giant companies. The ruling will now enable AT&T to purchase Time Warner for $85 billion.
Many analysts see the judgment as a blow to the Donald Trump administration that was not in favour of the deal.
US district judge Richard Leon said the government’s objections “rested on improper notions”. The deal will enable AT&T to acquire Time Warner’s blue-chip media properties including HBO and CNN.
“We are pleased that, after conducting a full and fair trial on the merits, the Court has categorically rejected the government’s lawsuit to block our merger with Time Warner,” AT&T General Counsel David McAtee said in a statement.
The statement also mentioned the plan to close the merger on or before June 20. Vanity Fair’s intrepid media writer Joe Pompeo has reported that AT&T will rename Time Warner soon.
The merger will bring change in the field of online distribution of content. AT&T will have a big library of content including big hits like HBO’s “Game of Thrones”.
With the emergence of giants like Netflix and Amazon, it has been often said that content creation and distribution needs innovation to survive against their onslaught.
With AT&T and its considerable finanacial clout now in the mix, the market dynamics are bound to change, impacting all the key players.
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