Financial Times’ Miles Kruppa and James Fontanella-Khan report on the increase of mergers and acquisitions among big tech companies and start-up businesses, further consolidating their power in the marketplace. “These companies are already extraordinarily powerful, but they’re well positioned to emerge as the biggest winners of COVID-19 unless some legislative action is taken,” said Sandeep Vaheesan, OMI’s legal director.
Read MoreA new bill from Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez strikes at the myths behind mergers.
Forbes’ contributor Rebecca Bellan reports on The American Edge Project, an advocacy group that Facebook helped launch in an effort to frame technological innovators as “an essential part of the U.S. economic health, national security and individual freedoms.”
Read MoreHuffPost’s Zach Carter reports on the effort led by the American Economic Liberties Project and nine other organizations, including Open Markets, prompting the Federal Reserve to ban bailout funding for M&A activity.
Read MoreIn a round-table discussion led by Columbia Journalism Review’s chief digital writer Mathew Ingram, media professionals and experts alike discuss and analyze ways to save the journalism industry in result of the ongoing funding crisis, including talks of short-term funding to long-term restructuring. Contributing to the discussion, Jody Brannon, director of the Center for Journalism & Liberty, said, “Distributing… news for centuries has been dictated by our sense of journalistic duty, but as we know news judgment, airtime and column inches (sorry for the aged metaphore) are not free.”
Read MoreAFR correspondent Jacob Greber cites Open Markets Institute when reporting in Financial Review about the US monitoring Australia's decision to make Big Tech share advertising revenue with local media companies.
Read MoreSeveral artist and consumer-rights groups have written to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to voice their disapproval and criticism of the potential Liberty Media-iHeartMedia acquisition deal.
The Center for Journalism and Liberty calls on the DOJ to deny any large-scale deal between Liberty and iHeartMedia.
Read MoreSilicon Valley's “if you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em” approach comes under federal scrutiny. Some antitrust experts say better late than never.
Read MoreMedium editor Steve LeVine quotes Open Markets legal director, Sandeep Vaheesan, in a piece about the FTC suing to stop a big razor company merger.
Read MoreOpen Markets Policy Director Phil Longman commented to the Miami Herald on hospital chains and insurers in South Florida and whether growing consolidation is good for patients. “Sometimes, through consolidation, you get real economies of scale: better coordination, integration of care,” Longman said. “But experience has shown that whatever cost savings result are generally not shared with consumers.”
Read MoreSally Hubbard spoke to The Washington Post about how it’s important for CEOs from the biggest tech firms to testify before Congress amid the big tech probe taking place by the House Antitrust Subcommittee. "I think it's important for the CEOs to appear in a public hearing to make clear they are accountable to our democratically-elected representatives and to the American public," she said.
Read MoreOpen Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard spoke to The Washington Post about why smaller technology companies have not been more outspoken regarding the anti-competitive practices of larger technology companies ahead of a House Antitrust Subcommittee field hearing taking place in Colorado where smaller tech firm leaders will have an opportunity to testify. “We don’t often hear from those entrepreneurs because they can't afford to speak out, we haven’t had a look under the hood of these companies,” Hubbard said.
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