With the current administration, anything can be legal.

Besides, they still have plans to spin off the cable networks, so this would mostly concern the streaming assets, movie studio, and the IP.

How does this work? I assume there would be one parent company at the end and if that's an American company what does any other country can say about it? Sure if they incorporated a child company there they might interfere, but they could also just close the company to deal with the situation and go forward with the merger.

If a US company operates in a different country as well, it has to abide by the laws of that country, or leave it. For example, Adobe's acquisition of Figma was blocked by the UK and EU regulators, despite them both being US companies headquartered in San Francisco. They could have chosen to leave the UK and EU markets entirely, in which case their merger would have been able to proceed, but they wouldn't have been able to sell anything to UK/EU citizens.

Either they comply or exit the country. Remember how the UK blocked the Microsoft/Activision merger for a time?

Yeah, "blocked" is a misleading word, if they merged anyway.

The merge was only allowed after changes.

They have production, distribution, and marketing ops in other markets. Those could be flogged until compliance.

The threat of sanctions and drone strikes usually makes everyone pretty friendly.

Then they lobby Trump who threatens the country with tariffs

Don't think this works anymore as much

Considering the words they're using across the announcement, it seems they're well aware what this will trigger, everything seems carefully chosen so someone can later point at this announcement and say "See, we think this will add MORE user choice, not less, which is good for competition!".

Every major merger announcement includes this obvious lie.

It is not a lie though. WB content is not globally available, Netflix content is. I for one, welcome access to stuff that WB has been sitting on without letting me pay them for it.

It is a lie. You are holding on a possible short time gain while ignoring history proven long-term harm of reduced competition, which will lead to higher prices, less innovation, and fewer choices for consumers.

USA anti-trust process is a joke, it is shame that so many company with global footprint relies on that.

> WB content is not globally available, Netflix content is.

Neither are "globally available" as "globally" includes countries that are currently under US embargo, and both those companies are US companies who (supposedly) follow US law.

What you're welcoming isn't "I didn't have access before, now I do!" but rather "I could give Company A money to see this, now I can give company B money to see the same!" which I guess you're happy about, but other's obviously see it for what it is, no practical change except for shareholders.

It's like there's an entire continent of rakes and people are the Louis and Clark of stepping on all of them.

It will lead to more choice ... in videos to watch. It will reduce choice in where to watch them or who to pay for the pleasure.

Great re-iteration of my point :) Written for anti-trust regulators, intentionally misusing the words they'd use, but with very different meaning. Hopefully professionals will see through their thin veil.

It isn’t. They should have been stopped, too.