Deadline: Penguin Random House-Simon & Schuster Merger Won’t Drive Down Author Advances And They Will “Continue To Go Up,” Publisher’s Attorney Says At Opening Of Antitrust Trial — Update

Opening arguments were given on Monday in the US Department of Justice’s case aiming to block Penguin Random House’s US$2.2 billion merger with Simon & Schuster. Dan Petrocelli, lead counsel for Penguin Random House, argued that the DOJ’s market definition for top selling books “does not exist” and that they shrunk their case by focusing on a tiny section of the market. “The government has created an artificial market to create artificial concentration to create artificial harm,” Petrocelli said. “You cannot define an antitrust market on the idea that you think a book is going to be a top seller.”

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