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.
Student loan collection company Navient agreed to cancel $1.7 billion in debt and paid more than $140 million in other penalties to settle a lawsuit over abusive lending practices. Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania who led negotiations in the settlement, joined Cheddar to go over the details of the company's predatory lending. "What Navient would do is charge [borrowers] these exorbitantly high rates, even though they knew people couldn't pay them or they would likely default on them," he explained.
An economic development agency, the Northwest Arkansas Council, is looking to draw technology professionals to their region of the Southern state with incentives like $10,000 worth of Bitcoin and a new bicycle. Nelson Peacock, president and CEO of the private nonprofit made up of companies like Walmart and Tyson Foods, joined Cheddar to talk about the program to further power his local economy. "By offering the payment in Bitcoin, we're looking to identify those people with interest and expertise in the underlying technologies, the blockchain technologies," he said.
Stocks closed mixed Friday with big bank stocks dragging on the Dow after a few lackluster earnings reports. Both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 gained, but overall, stocks notched a second losing week in a row to start 2022. Tom Kozlik, Head of Research and Analytics at Hilltop Securities, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss today's close, expectations for 2022 earnings reports, whether or not the COVID-19 omicron variant is being properly priced into markets, and more.
After months of investors turning to crypto as a hedge against inflation, instead of the traditional hedge of gold, one crypto exchange is working with a token creator to launch a digital coin backed by a physical asset. GCOIN gives customers a digital title of ownership to 99.99% pure physical gold which is stored in a secured vault. Brent de Jong, GCoin's founder and Kristin Boggiano, Co-Founder and President of CrossTower, a cryptocurrency exchange, join Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the GCOIN rollout, customer interest, why crypto is used as an inflation hedge, and more.
Retail platform operator and delivery company, Foxtrot,
raised $100 million in a Series C round led by D1 Capital Partners. Foxtrot bills itself as the modern convenience store that combines what it calls in-store curated discovery with 30-minute delivery and 5-minute pickup. Since launching first as a digital-only delivery service, the company has since grown into a popular local retailer, opening 16 brick and mortar locations across Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, DC. Foxtrot co-founder and CEO Michael LaVitola joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
As Meta and Microsoft ramp up their AR and VR tech futures, analysts have been waiting on word from Apple, but the consumer tech giant is reportedly delaying such an announcement. Doug Astrop, a managing partner at Exponential Investment Partners, joined Cheddar to dive into the rumors about the possibilities of a foray into the metaverse by Tim Cook's megacorp sometime in 2022 or 2023. "We can't really predict with a great deal of certainty how it's going to play out, but I'm confident Apple's going to be a big player and do very well in any scenario that unfolds," said Astrop.
Monster Beverage is charging into the beer and hard seltzer biz with its $330 acquisition of CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective. The energy drink finalized the deal a week after Constellation Brands Inc. made a deal with Coca-Cola to acquire the Fresca brand.
Ford has seen a record 52-week high for its valuation, hitting more than $100 billion for the first time. The rise in its stocks comes amid its push for more electric vehicles, including the highly anticipated F-150 Lightning pickup, coming this spring.
