A federal judge in New York has granted Fubo's request to block Venu Sports, a planned sports bundle from channels Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery, on antitrust grounds.
Federal judge rules against Google in massive antitrust case
Fubo filed a lawsuit in February, criticizing Venu as a “cartel” seeking to cause lasting damage to the company’s growing pay-TV business.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett issued her ruling (read it HERE ) Friday afternoon, granting a preliminary injunction. The decision came after several days of testimony from a number of high-profile media industry executives.
"Once the JV is in effect, the JV Defendants have no incentive to take actions that would allow direct competitors to emerge," Garnett wrote. "To the contrary, the multi-year monopoly runway they have created for themselves will provide powerful incentives to stifle competition and raise prices for both consumers and other distributors. But even if the JV Defendants swear that such price increases and foreclosures will not actually occur (although, as discussed below, there is good reason to believe that they will), one purpose of antitrust injunctions is to prevent anticompetitive incentives from arising in the first place, so that American consumers do not have to simply take their word for it and hope for the best."
