The Justice Department is seeking to appeal a federal judge’s June ruling permitting telecommunications giant AT&T to acquire Time Warner, amid opposition from the Office of the Solicitor General, a new reports says.
Officials in the Justice Department’s antitrust division have agreed they will appeal Judge Richard J. Leon’s ruling, but are waiting for Solicitor General Noel Francisco to sign off on the move, Fox Business reports.
Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim is pursuing approval for an appeal from the solicitor general’s office, who must authorize appeals from the DOJ in federal courts of the Supreme Court.
[More: Array of post-AT&T mega-mergers may define Trump-era antitrust policy]
“The view in the solicitor general’s office is that the government has limited capabilities of successful appeals and you don’t want to squander those on cases that are borderline,” an anonymous government official told Fox Business.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department’s antitrust division refused to provide Fox Business with a comment, and the solicitor general’s office did not respond to a media request.
After Leon’s ruling on June 12, he instructed the DOJ to not pursue a stay even though the government had a 60-day window to appeal the decision.
The Justice Department sued last fall to block the merger because they claimed it would negatively impact competition and President Trump has also vocalized his opposition to the merger.
