“Antitrust Enforcement is Back”: Judge Blocks Bertelsmann Corporation (Penguin Random House) Takeover of Simon & Schuster
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 1, 2022
CONTACT: Ashley Woolheater woolheater@openmarketsinstitute.org
“This victory is also a huge step toward an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon for its disruptive, antidemocratic, and politically dangerous monopolization of America’s market for books.”
WASHINGTON- From the outset, the Open Markets Institute warned about the harms Bertelsmann corporation (which owns Penguin Random House) taking over Simon & Schuster would bring to the entire literary community—authors, editors, readers, and publishers—and urged the Biden Administration to block it. The merger would have consolidated more than half of many key U.S. book markets under the control of this single corporation. Now, nearly a year after the Department of Justice Antitrust division stepped in at the urging of Open Markets, the "AUTHORS Guild" and many others, a district court judge has rightly blocked the $2.2 billion buyout, ruling the merger would substantially reduce competition for U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.
Open Markets Executive Director Barry Lynn issued the following statement:
“This decision is an enormous win for America’s book publishing business – especially readers, authors, and editors. This is also a huge win for America’s system of antitrust law – designed to protect creators, workers, independent businesses, and consumers from consolidated power and control, thanks especially to the success of the DOJs argument that the deal would increase Bertelsmann’s monopsony power over authors. And it is a hugely important demonstration of the Biden Administration’s efforts to renew and update America’s antimonopoly regime. The successful blocking of the Bertelsmann buyout demonstrates that antitrust enforcement is back.”
“This victory is also a huge step toward an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon for its disruptive, antidemocractic, and politically dangerous monopolization of America’s market for books. Open Markets and our allies strongly encourage Bertelsmann to devote its money and time to working in tandem with other publishers to help the U.S. government prepare a winning case against Amazon’s book business.”
In a statement on the ruling, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter wrote: “The proposed merger would have reduced competition, decreased author compensation, diminished the breadth, depth, and diversity of our stories and ideas, and ultimately impoverished our democracy... The decision is also a victory for workers more broadly. It reaffirms that the antitrust laws protect competition for the acquisition of goods and services from workers.”
AAG Kanter is absolutely right.
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The Open Markets Institute is a team of journalists, researchers, lawyers, economists, and advocates working together to expose and reverse the stranglehold that corporate monopolies have on our country.