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antitrust
Charter-Cox $34.5 Billion Megamerger the 'Last Thing' Consumers Need: Watchdog
"However troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
May 16, 2025
Charter Communications and Cox Communications on Friday announced a $34.5 billion merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create the largest cable television and broadband provider by subscribers in the United States, sparking a flurry of monopoly concerns.
Charter, which uses the branding Spectrum, is already the second-largest publicly traded cable company, but coupling with the privately held Cox would push it ahead of the current industry leader, Comcast. According to a statement from the cable giants, the combined company would be known as Cox Communications, with Spectrum as the consumer-facing brand.
"The last thing American consumers need is yet another megamerger, as giant internet service providers and cable companies claim they need to get yet-larger to keep up with their industry peers," said John Bergmayer, legal director at the watchdog Public Knowledge, in a Friday statement.
"More consolidation won't fix the cable industry, and introducing new sets of competitive problems is no way to address existing ones," he continued. "As always with cable mergers, the question is as much a loss of opportunities for content creators and programmers to reach an audience, as the loss of choices to subscribers."
As NBC News—whose parent company is Comcast—reported:
On a Friday call with investors, Charter CEO Chris Winfrey called the deal "good for America" and said it will "return jobs from overseas and create new, good-paying customer service and sales careers."
The commentary comes as corporate deal activity has been slower than expected since President Donald Trump took office.
After Trump won the election, Wall Street rallied as many expected the regulatory environment to loosen and the floodgates to open for dealmakers and corporate leaders. But in the months following the election, companies have been contending with other factors rather than dealmaking, such as the Federal Communications Commission's investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and the outcome of Trump's tariffs.
The Charter-Cox deal could face scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr. Journalist George Chidi said on social media that "in a sane world, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and the FCC would block the merger of Cox Communications and Charter."
"Do I need to even complete this thought?" Chidi asked. "For the next three years and six months—assuming we are still having actual elections, it's corporate Christmas."
Public Knowledge's Bergmayer said that "however troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
Trump has a long record of forcefully going after his critics, and experts—including Daniel Stockemer, a professor at Canada's University of Ottawa, in a commentary published earlier this month in the journal Politics & Policy—have warned that with his second term, the president is pushing the United States toward autocracy.
"Will the companies drop cable channels critical of this administration, or agree to censor online content or sites that the administration disapproves of—something the loss of Title II and net neutrality makes all the more likely?" Bergmayer wondered. "Given FCC Chairman Carr's proven willingness to use the agency's power to 'further the president's agenda,' and the willingness of companies to agree to get deals done, what could once be dismissed as paranoid speculation becomes frighteningly plausible."
"From walking back—even reversing—company policies designed to promote diversity and inclusion, to pulling back on news coverage critical of the administration, far too many companies have already put the short-term interest of currying favor with the White House over the public interest, and over the interests of their employees and the communities they serve," he added. "Hopefully that does not happen here."
Emarketer analyst Ross Benes told Reuters that "antitrust concerns are legitimate. But in this era of deregulation, the merger would probably pass as long as they don't upset the president."
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Warren Asks the Fed to Reconsider Approval of Capital One-Discover Merger
"This decision will inflict serious harm on consumers and merchants, especially low-income consumers and small businesses," wrote Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Maxine Waters.
May 05, 2025
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California are urging the Federal Reserve to reconsider its approval of an impending merger between Capital One Financial Corporation and Discover Financial Services, a tie-up that critics have warned could harm consumers.
In a letter sent last week, Warren and Waters wrote that the decision to approve the merger by the Federal Reserve "was inconsistent with the legal requirements" under the Bank Holding Company Act. They also argued that it did not include a number of relevant assessments, including how the the merger would impact the "convenience and needs of the community" or the "competitive effects on the credit card market."
"This decision will inflict serious harm on consumers and merchants, especially low-income consumers and small businesses, and threaten the stability of the U.S. financial system," states the letter, which was addressed to Secretary of the Board Ann Misback and dated May 1.
Warren is the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and Waters is the ranking member on the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
The deal was announced in February 2024 and is valued at $35 billion. A report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released right before the acquisition was announced found that the largest credit card firms charge much higher interest rates than smaller banks and credit unions.
The deal initially received some scrutiny around possible impacts to competition, but in April 2025 overcame a major obstacle when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), now under the Trump administration, decided not to challenge the merger.
The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave the deal the green light last month.
In response to the DOJ's decision not to challenge the merger, Morgan Harper, the director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote that "if the Trump administration green-lights the Capital One-Discover merger, it will be a betrayal of working-class Americans and small businesses." The American Economic Liberties Project is an anti-monopoly research and advocacy group.
"If the deal goes through, Capital One will become the largest credit card lender in the country, the first major issuer in decades to control its own payments network, and entrench its striking dominance in subprime credit card lending," Harper continued.
One noteworthy aspect of the merger, which is expected to be finalized mid-May, is that Capital One is set to acquire Discover's card network. This means the combined firm would be akin to a larger version of American Express, "a stand-alone integrated system that could use its millions of customers to push higher fees onto merchants," according to The American Prospect.
Capitol One currently uses Visa and Mastercard credit card networks, which operate an effective duopoly of global payment processing, but has said it would transition to the Discover card network, according the outlet CNET.
This aspect of the merger is without clear precedent and raises concerns about competition, according to Jesse Van Tol, the chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a group that is opposed to the deal, who spoke to The New York Times in April.
"The market power it gives them, and the opportunity it gives them to set pricing in ways that captures a lot of value for the company at the expense of the consumer, is significant," Van Tol told the Times.
In their letter, Warren and Waters alleged that the Federal Reserve failed to adequately scrutinize the competitive effect of this aspect of the deal.
"The board argued that given 'the significant, larger competitors that would remain,' and that Capital One doesn't currently own a network, there aren't any competitive concerns. The board completely missed the fact that the merger would provide Capital One with significant market power to increase interchange fees charged to merchants and reduce rewards and other benefits for consumers. It didn't grapple with the implications of vertical integration and network effects," the two wrote.
When considering the conveniences and needs of the community, Warren and Waters said in their letter that the Federal Reserve did not perform the prospective analysis required by law, and instead "focused on each bank's past performance under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)," even though "the convenience and needs of the community is a distinct legal factor, separate and apart from banks' past performance under the CRA."
The two also said that the Federal Reserve appears to not have taken into consideration relevant findings from the CFPB, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the DOJ.
Bloomberg reported last week that the Federal Reserve received the letter and plans to response, per a spokesperson.
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After Two Setbacks For Google’s Monopoly, the Fight To Rein in Its Empire Continues
Long given an effective pass for its anti-competitive behavior, the company is finally getting its comeuppance in federal court, and not a moment too soon.
May 02, 2025
Don’t look now, but the federal government just notched not one, but two, major antitrust victories against one of the biggest corporations on Earth.
In the past few decades, digital monopolists like Google have built far-reaching empires impacting almost every facet of our online lives. Long given an effective pass for its anti-competitive behavior, the company is finally getting its comeuppance in federal court, and not a moment too soon.
Back in 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Google for illegally monopolizing the search market. In 2023, this was followed by a second suit over the company’s digital advertising monopoly. In the first case, federal Judge Amit Mehta stated the obvious in his ruling that when it comes to the search engine market, Google is a monopolist; in April, the DOJ pushed an ambitious remedy proposal to dismantle its search monopoly. Google was dealt another blow in April in the second case, where judge Leonie Brinkema agreed that Google has illegally monopolized online advertising.
Antitrust enforcers are now making major strides toward reining in Google’s anti-competitive behavior.
There’s no question that Google’s monopoly is looking more fragile than ever. Even as Big Tech CEOs have bent over backwards to curry favor with the Trump administration, they’ve failed to stop antitrust efforts against them from continuing. And at a time when Meta is also in the antitrust hot seat in court, there’s real reason for optimism when it comes to finally taking Big Tech to task.
Nevertheless, when you consider the scale of Google’s empire, the search and digital advertising lawsuits should be seen as just the beginning of the battle. Sure, anyone who’s used a computer understands just how ubiquitous Google’s search engine is. But less obvious to most people is that it is set to control a media empire bigger than Disney, all while working to dominate the self-driving car market and gobble up promising startups. This doesn’t even get into the AI factor: As the DOJ noted in court, the rapid pace of AI development could further entrench Google’s monopoly if left unchecked.
Take YouTube, Google’s most powerful asset after search. As antitrust suits against Google in the U.S. and abroad have piled up in recent years, YouTube has often felt like a threat hidden in plain sight. Take the issue of advertising on YouTube, for example. The Information, a tech-focused publication, noted last year that Google has a policy of requiring would-be YouTube advertisers to use Google’s in-house DV360 tool. The impact of this rule has, predictably, been to put more money in Google’s pockets while deepening advertisers’ reliance on its services.
For $1.6 billion in 2006, Google was able to take control of what today is the world’s largest video platform, with the deal avoiding antitrust action. Almost 20 years later, there remains no real competitor to YouTube: Though TikTok and Instagram’s Reels compete with YouTube when it comes to short-form video, the service is without a peer in long-form, monetizable content.
In June 2024, a coalition of advocacy groups called on the DOJ to scrutinize YouTube. In their letter, they noted that the platform’s dominance is propped up by bundling practices that make it nearly impossible for rivals to compete. Of specific concern is that smart TVs emerging as a norm in U.S. households could allow Google and YouTube to cement its dominance in home entertainment.
Few moves better illustrate Google’s expansionist mindset (and arrogance in the face of antitrust lawsuits) than its bid to acquire Wiz. Though not a household name, there’s a reason that Google is intent on acquiring it, even after its initial bid was turned down. Despite launching just five years ago, Wiz has grown so fast that it is now used by roughly half of all Fortune 500 companies. By acquiring Wiz, Google will make other corporate giants even more dependent on its services, further fortifying its monopoly status.
Much of the coverage of the Wiz deal centers on its price tag, and for good reason. At $32 billion dollars, the Wiz acquisition stands to be the most expensive in Google’s history. This isn’t just notable because it is occurring in the face of multiple antitrust showdowns. But more unusual is that this figure is 30 times larger than Wiz’s expected revenue for 2025. While the math may seem peculiar at first, there’s likely more than meets the eye here.
Few have better insight into Google’s anti-competitive behavior than Jonathan Kanter, who took the company to court twice when he led the DOJ Antitrust Division under former President Joe Biden. In a recent CNBC interview, Kanter posited that the deal could be a “Trojan horse for Google to get access to data that is increasingly becoming out of its reach.”
In 2006, federal regulators fumbled the ball by allowing the acquisition of YouTube to go through unscathed. The next year, the Federal Trade Commission made the mistake of allowing Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, a deal that would help build and cement the company’s digital advertising dominance. But two decades later, antitrust enforcers are now making major strides toward reining in Google’s anti-competitive behavior. As federal officials work to correct the mistakes of the past, they should continue taking a multifaceted approach to Google’s monopoly.
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