The US Justice Department blocked the merger deal between AT&T and Time Warner, the US telecommunications and media giants.
According to the authority, the operation - worth 85 billion dollars - "would harm consumers by increasing monthly subscription bills and decreasing innovation".
The merger deal was announced more than a year ago, and has always been opposed by Donald Trump. Since the day he took office, the President has been waging a "war", made up of threats and low blows, against CNN, a publication considered the enemy and owned by Time Warner.
For the two groups it was completely unexpected news. AT&T has announced its willingness to continue and is ready to appeal: "It is an inexplicable decision compared to those taken in the past," said the telephony giant.
This heralds an Antitrust battle, perhaps one of the most important in recent decades. The two groups will also be able to cling to the recent history of vertical mergers: in 2011, for example, the Obama administration had given the green light to the merger between Comcast and NBCUniversal
From the wedding a telecommunications giant would be born, one of the largest in the world - with CNN in its portfolio but also the Time studios Warner and Hbo – competing in TV, mobile and original content. The wedding has already received the go-ahead from many global authorities, including the EU, according to which the union between AT&T and Time Warner it does not create concurrency problems.
For the final decision, the response of the Court of Justice is now awaited, called to resolve an issue which, if it were to end with the definitive rejection of the merger, could have serious implications for Trump, accused by his opponents of wanting to "eliminate" the newspapers and networks deemed inconvenient.
