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US: DOJ’s AA, US block should not be taken as a bluff, say experts

By  |  August 15, 2013

The lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice to block the merger between American Airlines and US Airways should be taken as a legitimate effort to stop the deal, say antitrust experts. The DOJ filed the suit in Washington on Tuesday seeking a “full-stop injunction” on the airline merger. According to antitrust lawyers and experts, the lawsuit is not just a method to obtain concessions from the airlines before granting approval. One California antitrust lawyer, Mark Ostrau, said a sign that this lawsuit should be taken seriously can be found in an appendix to the suit that lists more than 1,000 routes between US cities that the DOJ says will be run by a monopoly should the merger proceed. The merger, worth about $11 billion, would create the world’s largest airline and has already been cleared by European regulators.

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    CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to US Airways as United in the headline. We regret the error.

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