On Friday, the Department of Justice and Penguin Random House both filed their formal pre-trial briefs with the court for the upcoming A3 antitrust trial, framing in advance their core arguments and counterpoints. As in their original complaint, the DOJ focuses on their core argument that the acquisition of Simon & Schuster “would further entrench the largest publishing giant in the United States (and the world) and give the merged company control of nearly half of the market to acquire anticipated top-selling books [ATSB] from authors.” They allege that the “merger would likely result in authors of anticipated top-selling books […]
