Judge rules on AT&T-Time Warner merger

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon is set to announce this afternoon whether AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time Warner can go forward. The Trump administration opposes the merger — which would unite one of the country’s biggest telecom providers with a media giant — and the Justice Department has sued to block it.

Beyond the impact on the companies, the merger, if approved, could also spur frantic dealmaking in the rapidly consolidating media sector. Consumers, too, are eagerly watching, with people already lining up on Monday outside the Washington courtroom in hopes of getting a seat, Bloomberg reported.

Leon previously approved Comcast’s acquisition of NBCU in 2011. In that case, he added a list of conditions the new entity was required to follow. Among those, Comcast agreed not to gouge competitors who wanted to carry NBC content and not to create a service entirely made up of Comcast or NBC content.

The Justice Department has pressured Time Warner to sell Turner Broadcasting, which includes the cable news operation CNN, or other segments of the business — suggestions the companies have so far resisted.

Wall Street seems to be betting that the deal will be approved, with shares of both AT&T and Time Warner rising over the past week.

“On balance and inference, we continue to believe the ruling will come down in favor of the merger, presuming a strenuous burden of proof for the Justice Department to sustain a largely unprecedented anti-trust case,” analysts for CFRA wrote in a note. “Such an outcome could then open the floodgates for a new wave of M&A activity in a rapidly changing landscape.”