AT&T Time Warner Will Get Another Look

The way antitrust law works in the U.S. is that when two companies want to merge, they file a notice with the authorities, and the authorities have some time to figure out whether to challenge the merger. Because while it is a big disruptive pain to abandon a merger agreement that has been signed and announced, it is far more disruptive to abandon a merger that has already been closed. The selling shareholders have been cashed out, the legal entities have been merged, the stationery has been changed, the trade secrets have been shared, the egg can’t really be unscrambled.