In a Washington D.C courtroom on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice and Penguin Random House – parties to a landmark antitrust lawsuit seeking to block PRH’s purchase of Simon & Schuster– agreed to an expedited schedule for proceedings, including an August 1, 2022 trial date.
Earlier, PRH offered answers to the government’s charges, especially DOJ’s claim that the purchase would “likely result in substantial harm to authors of anticipated top-selling books and ultimately, consumers.”
Attorneys for the publisher “took aim at the government’s theory that the deal will chill the advances of ‘anticipated top-selling books,’ calling that a fictional category that the government hasn’t even bothered to define,” says Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer.
“They argue that the government’s market share data is wrong, and that the data they will present will show that the deal would actually be good for the industry,” he tells CCC.