US: Delrahim praises John Oliver’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ antitrust segment

According to Variety, John Oliver’s tough take on lax enforcement of antitrust laws in a segment last year on “Last Week Tonight,” was very well received by Makan Delrahim, the chief of the Justice Department’s antitrust division.

“He did a great piece, about 17 minutes on antitrust law, and he goes through all this, and it makes for great entertainment. Some of this stuff is probably true,” Delrahim said, with some levity, of the segment, which ran in September.

In an event on Tuesday, February 6, Delrahim was speaking to students at George Washington University Law School about the segment, his alma mater.

In the segment, Oliver pointed to industries like airlines, cable TV and eyewear that have consolidated to the point where a handful of players control the market, or consumers are faced with just one option. He also took aim at AT&T and noted its plans to buy HBO’s parent, Time Warner.

Delrahim told the students that the AT&T-Time Warner transaction “will affect the way that all of us view content,” but he declined to comment on the case itself.

Full Content: Variety

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