Following Amazon’s recent acquisition of MGM, the deal will reportedly be reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission — meaning Lina Khan, a long-out

The FTC is reportedly poised to probe Amazon’s MGM acquisition

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2021-06-23 02:30:06

Following Amazon’s recent acquisition of MGM, the deal will reportedly be reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission — meaning Lina Khan, a long-outspoken critic of Amazon who recently became FTC chair, will have oversight over the deal. The proceedings could signal how she’ll handle antitrust cases against Amazon in the future.

Citing people familiar with the situation, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the FTC requested oversight of the deal during negotiations between agencies specifically because it is currently overseeing the ongoing antitrust probe. According to the WSJ, the Justice Department and FTC have divvied up antitrust investigations of the tech giants — Apple, Google, and Facebook are also the subject of the probes — but the FTC pushed for jurisdiction over Amazon-MGM.

Either way, the deal would have likely received scrutiny. Large acquisitions and mergers that may or may not lead to antitrust issues are typically reviewed as a standard practice.