*By Alisha Haridasani* The Justice Department will appeal the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner mega-merger a month after a federal judge gave it his blessing. That's according to court papers reportedly filed on Thursday, which challenge Judge Richard Leon's ruling that the government did not sufficiently prove a deal would hurt competition in the industry. At the time, Leon also tried to dissuade the DoJ from filing an appeal. “A stay pending appeal would be a manifestly unjust outcome in this case,” wrote Judge Richard Leon. “I do not believe that the government has a likelihood of success on the merits of an appeal.” Since receiving the green light, AT&T completed its acquisition of Time Warner and created a new company called WarnerMedia, which started offering skinny bundles for consumers leveraging on content from CNN, TBS, and TNT. But while the companies promised the deal would not raise prices for consumers, AT&T earlier this month hiked the monthly rate for most of its DirecTV Now video streaming plans. Amazon Studios' former head of strategy Matthew Ball [pointed out](https://twitter.com/ballmatthew/status/1017507315266785280) that may have been a bad move. AT&T shares fell by more than 1 percent on the news in after hours trading.

Share:
More In Business
Facebook Users: Aug. 25th Is Your Last Day to Apply for Part of This $725M Settlement
Anyone in the U.S. who had an account at any time between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, is eligible to receive a payment. The 2022 settlement resolves a lawsuit alleging that Facebook allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Load More