The Justice Department Will Appeal AT&T-Time Warner Deal
*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.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union, one of the country's largest, opposed the planned merger between grocery chains Kroger and Albertson's, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing concerns about lack of information and the potential viability of stores upon closing.
Johnson & Johnson's consumer-health unit Kenvue made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange and jumped about 20% on Thursday. Thibaut Mongon, CEO of Kenvue, joined Cheddar News to discuss business growth goals and what lies ahead for its well-known pipeline of products, including Band-Aid, Neutrogena, Tylenol, among others.
Cheddar News' reporter Angela Miles reports from the Cboe floor with Scott Bauer, CEO of the Prosper Trading Academy, to break down Apple, Moderna, and Datadog earnings for options traders.
Billionaire Stephen Deckoff's SD Investments has purchased two islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands that were previously owned by the late sex criminal and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Two 10-year-olds are among 300 children who worked at McDonald's restaurants illegally, a Labor Department investigation of franchisees in Kentucky found.
