On November 7, Judge Florence Pan released her memorandum opinion blocking Penguin Random House from acquiring rival Big Five publisher Simon & Schuster—and in the final analysis, after a year of legal wrangling and a three-week trial that captivated the publishing industry, it wasn’t a close case for her at all. In the judge’s economical 80-page decision, Pan found the U.S. Department of Justice easily showed the proposed merger would likely “lessen competition” in the market for book rights in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act.
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