*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
U.S. Mayors Consider Crypto to Fix Economic Inequality
Mayors in cities like Miami and New York City are considering introducing cryptocurrencies as a way to reduce economic inequality. Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez has even pushed for distributing Bitcoin dividends to the city's inhabitants.
Recruiting Influencers to Be Competitive in the Metaverse
As companies look toward the metaverse concept to further move their companies online, Shep Ogden, CEO and co-founder of Offbeat Media, spoke with Cheddar about questions investors should be posing to businesses like how customized the metaverse experience will be. "One of the best things that people can do, or companies can do, to be competitive is really find those influencers within the community that are very deep in the space," Ogden added.
Another Television Character Dies by Peloton, This Time on 'Billions'
Coming off of a horrible week for Peloton on the stock market, another character from a TV series died after riding the stationary bike. Mike Wagner on "Billions" was the latest fictional tragedy, just a month after "Mr. Big" suffered a similar fate on the "Sex and the City" reboot "And Just Like That." Peloton tweeted it had not worked with the Showtime series on the episode.
Load More