Bertelsmann’s recent international managers’ meeting focused on plans to invest from €5 billion to €7 billion euros across the company by 2025 — but as the FT underscores, right now the company’s ambition to acquire is facing multiple obstacles. Besides the Simon & Schuster acquisition, now in doubt pending the verdict of Judge Florence Pan, […]
Antitrust Trial
You Also Get…
It takes at least a few posts to explain just how much material we have packed into our new ebook THE TRIAL. Yes, it has the full opening and closing arguments; the full public testimony of 22 witnesses; Judge Pan’s critical (and lengthy) ruling disallowing Penguin Random House’s evidence about their projected post-merger cost savings […]
Publishing Today: The Comprehensive Account of THE TRIAL
While publishers large and small are planning to issue versions of the still-unwritten January 6th report, only Publishers Lunch is bold enough (or crazy enough) to bring to market a nearly complete record of THE TRIAL: The DOJ’s Suit to Block Penguin Random House’s Acquisition of Simon & Schuster. It may not be the “big […]
Judge Florence Pan Elevated to Higher Court
As expected, the Senate confirmed the elevation of Judge Florence Pan — who is currently deciding the PRH-SS antitrust trial — to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It has not yet been announced when Judge Pan will assume her new role, or what effect the news will have on the […]
DOJ’s Post-Trial Briefs Restate Their Case
In a confident and assured filing of “findings of fact and conclusions of law,” the Department of Justice restated for the final time their case to block Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster. “The proposed acquisition is precisely the march toward concentration and monopsony power that Congress enacted the Clayton Act to prevent. […]
PRH Releases Post-Trial Briefs
The antitrust trial is only just now officially over. On Wednesday the parties filed their final objections to each other’s “proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law” (which were submitted last week), and by the end of day today redacted versions of all of those extensive documents become public. Only PRH’s redacted public filings […]