FTC Launches Investigation Into Amazon’s MGM Acquisition: Report

The Federal Trade Commission is launching a probe into Amazon’s almost $8.5 billion bid to accumulate MGM Studios, the Information reported Friday.

The FTC, newly led by vocal Amazon critic Lina Khan, will focus its investigation on “the larger implications of the deal for Amazon’s market power,” two individuals accustomed to the matter instructed the outlet. According to those sources, the company is worried that this merger will “illegally boost Amazon’s ability to offer a wide array of goods and services, and is not just limited to content production and distribution.”

In May, Amazon introduced that it had reached a deal to buy MGM and, together with it, the rights to the legacy movie studio’s film and TV library. At almost $8.45 billion, it’s considered one of Amazon’s largest acquisitions so far, second solely to its $13.7 billion buy of Whole Foods in 2017.

Of course, given Amazon’s observe file of antitrust lawsuits and complaints, federal scrutiny appeared inevitable. The Wall Street Journal confirmed these rumors on June 22nd, reporting that an FTC investigation into the merger was within the works. Not lengthy after, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts known as on the FTC to totally evaluation the potential “anticompetitive effects” this deal might have on each the leisure business and Amazon’s present stranglehold on different markets, she wrote in a letter to Khan reviewed by the Verge.

This investigation can be the newest push on the federal degree to interrupt up a few of America’s largest corporations. Earlier on Friday, President Joe Biden signed a wide-ranging executive order geared toward selling competitors within the U.S. financial system—notably in Silicon Valley. It urges the FCC to re-evaluate web neutrality requirements for broadband corporations and roll again anti-competitive restrictions that drive customers to depend on producers to restore their devices. The marketing campaign to bust up Big Tech has additionally secured bipartisan help in Congress, which just lately launched new antitrust laws supposed to restrict their energy and enhance market competitors.