Monopoly Round-Up: Corporate Lawyers and Fat Envelope America

Things are going to slow down this week and next, since it’s Christmas, but there was lots of monopoly related news this week. What looks like a fake sale of TikTok was announced, the FTC sued Uber, and a former FTC enforcer exposed private equity’s role in youth sports.

Before getting to the round-up, I want to focus on three events that unmask some behind-the-scenes villains in the Trump era, as well as the pushback that’s happening behind the scenes.

Let’s start with the villains.

As we know, both Netflix and Paramount are seeking to buy Warner Bros Discovery for $100B+, in order to consolidate Hollywood. Paramount owner David Ellison openly told Donald Trump he’ll change CNN if allowed to buy the firm, in order to get permission to buy the firm. Netflix’s CEO Ted Sarandos also met with Trump, and no doubt that plus antitrust lawyer Steve Sunshine’s political analysis is why the Warner board agreed to sell to that bid.

Well, a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal and Politico reported that both Netflix and Paramount are employing the same lobbying firm, Ballard Partners, where both Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles used to work. Ballard is the lobbying funnel for most major corporate deals under Trump, and has a strong whiff of corruption around it. Several Senators are demanding Bondi recuse herself. But basically, everyone in corporate America is openly saying they can use a fat envelope to overcome that pesky rule of law thing, and Ballard seems like the post office for these fat envelopes.

The thing is, surrounding all of these deals aren’t just lobbyists, but oodles of antitrust lawyers. Well-credentialed, well-paid corporate lawyers. Corporate lawyers who have all sworn an oath to the Constitution, to the courts, and to honesty and virtue in their representation of clients before the law, who are in good standing with the American Bar Association Antitrust Section. And many of them have, Democrats and Republicans, wholly and eagerly embraced the corruption of the Trump era.

So those are the villains. Perhaps that is not so shocking.

But what is surprising is that there is actually pushback. On Wednesday, there was a little-noticed procedural hearing over a little-noticed merger that closed six months ago, the $14 billion combination of Hewlett Packard and Juniper Networks. The deal isn’t important in and of itself, but ...