Shares in AT&T and Time Warner dropped Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Justice Department is planning for a possible antitrust lawsuit that would seek to prevent the media giant’s planned $85 billion merger if the companies and government can’t agree on a settlement.
Regulators are preparing for the lawsuit on a parallel track to their negotiations with the companies on a settlement that would give them the government’s blessing for the deal in exchange for certain conditions, the Journal wrote.
Such negotiations are not uncommon in big media mergers — regulators imposed numerous conditions on Comcast when it acquired NBCUniversal in 2011, such as mandating the company make NBC’s channels available to its cable competitors.