Federal Judge Richard Leon played it straight down the middle in his first ruling on the US government’s controversial suit to stop AT&T from buying Time Warner.
The DC judge set March 19 as the trial date — a bit earlier than the May 7 date that the Department of Justice wanted but later than the Feb. 20 date AT&T had requested.
President Trump’s DOJ has sued to stop AT&T from completing the $85 billion merger, alleging that combining AT&T’s DirectTV service with Time Warner, which owns TNT, HBO and CNN, would give AT&T the incentive to raise rates for Time Warner’s programs.
AT&T — whose CEO Randall Stephenson has suggested that Trump may be looking to block the merger out of spite for CNN — says Time Warner will have the same incentive to distribute its programming as widely as possible.
MoginRubin lawyer Jonathan Rubin, who is litigating an antitrust case against Visa and Mastercard before Leon, said he is a no-nonsense judge.
“My experience is he has very little patience for formalism,” and likely will not be wowed by either the government or AT&T’s highly regarded legal eagles from O’Melveny.
“He is independent and will make up his own mind,” Rubin said. “The sides will get to litigate the facts, not politics. Leon wants parties to stick to their knitting and not to squabble.”