The Federal Trade Commission will review Amazon.com Inc.’s proposed $8.45 billion purchase of MGM studios under the regulator’s new chair, an especially vocal critic of the online giant’s expansion.
The MGM deal, which would greatly expand content on the Amazon Prime Video streaming platform with the James Bond franchise and TV fare like “The Handmaid’s Tale,” will fall under the purview of the FTC and its new chair, Lina Khan, according to a Wall Street Journal report Tuesday.
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Privately, those familiar with Amazon’s strategy insist MGM will provide more choice of quality entertainment options for viewers. They also point out that MGM is one of Hollywood’s smallest established studios with only 1% of box office gross in North America last year, lagging badly behind Sony Pictures, Universal, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney/20th Century Fox/20th Century Studios, and Paramount Pictures.
Recently, the Department of Justice has reviewed video-content acquisitions, including Walt Disney Co.’s DIS,
As a Yale Law School student, Khan wrote a 2017 article in the Yale Law Journal that Amazon shouldn’t be excluded from antitrust scrutiny simply because it had a history of cutting prices.
Read more: The wrath of Khan? New FTC chair is Big Tech’s biggest nightmare
