After a bitter two-year battle, the takeover of Simon & Schuster (the world’s number four in the industry and owned by Paramount Global) by the world’s #1 publisher Penguin Random House (a subsidiary of Germany’s Bertelsmann) is finally not to happen. The $2.18 billion deal was blocked by a US federal judge in late October after weeks of litigation.
Joe Biden’s administration, which is very wary of mergers in the media and technology sectors, filed the suit through the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). He believed that the frenzy created by this merger risked reducing the number of works published, undermining the price of books for readers, and reducing the financial advances given to authors. The collection would represent nearly half of the publishing rights to future bestsellers.
Antitrust nervousness
Today, while the Bertelsmann subsidiary wanted to appeal this decision…
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Source: Le Figaro
I’m Liza Grey, an experienced news writer and author at the Buna Times. I specialize in writing about economic issues, with a focus on uncovering stories that have a positive impact on society. With over seven years of experience in the news industry, I am highly knowledgeable about current events and the ways in which they affect our daily lives.