Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Dominant percentage is whatever the bureaucrats and lawyers say it is.
(Just ask GE about how the EU torpedoed *their* merger with Honeywell. Just 'cause.)
The very publisher-friendly article in the OP tells you why the merger will be looked upon askew: no retailer will be able to do without their books so they won't have any meaningful leverage in negotiations.
That is by anybody's definition "too much" market power.
Achieving "too much" market power by merger instead of by native growth is a common reason to block mergers.
And doing this right on the heals of an antitrust action for conspiracy to collude and raise prices? Where one of the merger partners used *its* market power to force a top-rank retailer to pressure the other merger partner to conform to the conspiracy's terms?
Oh, yeah; that is going to go down well at the DOJ...
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Excuse me please... what is this "DOJ" and why should I care about it, have checked and is not an EU organisation, seems to be US... which, contrary to some beliefs, isn't the "be all and end all" of the world... And the argument that, "...no retailer will be able to do without their books..." applies to every publisher from an indie to Amazon... a publisher usually has sole rights to publish a given title in a given area, hence has to be dealt with...
Personally, I'd rather publishers merged if it means they can survive long enough to reorganise their way of doing business but I realise that is heresy on MR as any organisation is automatically running a giant conspiracy to crush everyone else and impose their evil will on the world...
