The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Tuesday to prevent Penguin Random House, the world’s largest book publisher, buy your rival Simon & Schuster, saying the deal would give it “enormous influence” over what Americans read.
The German media group Bertelsmann, owner of Penguin Random House, agreed last year to pay $ 2.175 million in cash to purchase Simon y cobbler, from ViacomCBS, reinforcing its presence in the United States and adding among others the novelist Stephen King to its catalog of authors.
In his complaint filed in federal court in Washington, the Justice Department He said the deal would give “great influence over who and what gets published and how much authors are paid for their work.”
The complaint highlights the importance of companies that compete to have best selling books, as well as the money generated by the people who write them.
“Authors are the lifeblood of book publishing in America. But only five publishers control the industry,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “If the world’s largest book publisher can acquire one of its biggest rivals, it will have unprecedented control over this important industry.”
If the merger proceeds, the agreement would give Penguin Random House nearly half of the publishing market for best-selling books, while its closest competitors would be less than half its size, according to the complaint.
The complaint also highlights that Simon & Schuster is the fourth largest book publisher in the United States and that if combined with Penguin Random House, its revenues in the country would be double that of its closest competitors.
Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster They said in a statement that they “will vigorously fight this lawsuit.”
“The book sales market is not concentrated and stocks combined are well below levels of concern,” they argued.
In a note to his employees, the CEO of Simon & SchusterJonathan Karp said the companies “strongly disagree with the Justice Department on the fact that this transaction will hurt competition.”
“Penguin Random House will fight vigorously for this transaction to come to fruition and we will do all we can to assist in those efforts,” he said.
Some great authors of Simon & Schuster are Stephen King and Doris Kearns Goodwin, while Barack and Michelle Obama and John Grisham have posted with Penguin Random House.
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Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx