The US Justice Department has sued to block the Los Angeles Times' acquisition of the Orange County Register.
The Justice Dept. filed an anti-trust suit seeking a temporary restraining order a day after LA Times parent Tribune won an auction for the assets of bankrupt Freedom Communications, parent of the Register.
The Justice Dept. contends Tribune would acquire a virtual monopoly over news in the region asit would account for 98 precent of newspaper sales in Orange County and 81 percent of English-language newspaper sales in Riverside County.
“If this acquisition is allowed to proceed, newspaper competition will be eliminated and readers and advertisers in Orange and Riverside Counties will suffer,” said Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer. “Newspapers continue to play an important role in the dissemination of news and information to readers and remain an important vehicle for advertisers."
Tribune said it will fight the suit and suggested the government's justification is outdated.
"The [Justice Dept.] is living in a time capsule, with a framework that predates the arrival of iPhones, Google, Facebook, and modern media outlets that are killing the traditional newspaper industry," corporate comms. director Dana Meyer said in a statement. "It wasn't competition from the L.A. Times that forced the Register into bankruptcy. It was the Internet and related technology."
Tribune on March 17 won the auction for Freedom, agreeing to pay $56M in cash for its assets (including the Register and Press-Enterprise) and real estate in Santa Ana and Riverside, Calif.
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