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.
Stocks are rising again as a bit more fear evaporates from Wall Street. The S&P 500 was up 0.7% early Thursday. The benchmark index is on pace for its fifth gain in the last six days.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is set to pay almost $23 billion to stabilize the banking sector. That money comes from an insurance fund that is refilled through fees paid by banks. Now the agency is considering a special assessment on the entire industry to help make up the costs, according to a Bloomberg report.
About 61% of Americans say the economy is impacting their mental health, according to a PayPal survey. Shanthi Sarkar, vice president of financial services at PayPal, joined Cheddar News to break down some key takeaways from the survey and offer tips on saving and managing money.
Monthly VC funding fell below $20 billion in February, marking a two-year low. Jager McConnell, CEO of Crunchbase, joined Cheddar News to discuss the current funding climate and what lies ahead.
Longtime Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is facing sharp questioning before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee where he is defending the company’s actions during an ongoing unionizing campaign.
