AT&T’s $85-bn bid for Time Warner hangs in limbo

At the Department of Justice, staff members in the antitrust office have been doggedly investigating AT&T’s blockbuster $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner.

They have deposed the executives of both companies; questioned several media, telecommunications and technology rivals; and demanded thousands of pages of confidential documents from scores of businesses to discern if the deal would violate competition laws — and thus if it should go ahead at all. But eight months into the review, the small army of career antitrust officials is marching toward a great unknown.

For one thing, the Justice Department officials still don’t have a boss who will have the final say on whether to approve or block the deal. President Trump’s pick for assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust matters, Makan Delrahim, has been held up in a logjam of nominees in the Senate.

And Mr. Trump himself, who said during last year’s campaign that he opposed the deal, is another wild card. A senior administration official said last week that members of the White House were discussing how they might use their perch over the merger review as leverage over Time Warner’s news network, CNN.

All of that has effectively put into limbo the most significant business deal before the Trump administration, a benchmark for business transactions going forward. In turn, that has cast a cloud over the business world, which is watching the lengthy regulatory process with intense interest. “We’ll obviously take a hard look at that,” Charles W. Ergen, the chief executive of Dish Network, said in a call with analysts in November, referring to AT&T’s bid for Time Warner. “It’s going to be a big deal. We’re certainly going to have some concerns.”

Ergen said that AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner would spur other cable and satellite companies to seek deals with wireless companies and content firms. “People on the sidelines have to do something different,” he said. “You can remain on the sidelines, but that might be malpractice.”

The deal is still expected to be approved because AT&T and Time Warner don’t directly compete. But unlike past megamergers such as Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal in 2013, this one is potentially trickier from an antitrust perspective. That’s because AT&T has a nationwide footprint with its wireless and DirecTV satellite service, and could use that reach to demand higher fees from media companies and other cable and satellite firms.

“The business community is watching intensely to see what an antitrust D.O.J. will look like in the Trump administration and how much of the rhetoric from the campaign trickles down into policy,” said Vivek Stalam, an analyst at New Street Research. “People are looking at AT&T-Time Warner as the first indicator of what that will be like.”

As the review process drags on, business leaders are not sitting on their hands, with many continuing to carry out their strategic plans.