Posted on March 24, 2021 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Penguin Random House was facing scrutiny in the United States for its deal to take over fellow big five publisher Simon & Schuster.
Now the United Kingdom’s competition watchdog has begun looking into the merger as well.
The Guardian reports that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has until May 19 to decide whether to escalate the investigation.
Several groups, including the Authors Guild, previously sent the US Department of Justice a letter asking it to block the deal.
Bertelsmann, which owns Penguin, has said that combining with Simon & Schuster would give it less than 20 percent of the total US market share, a figure that the chief executive of News Corp — which bid against Bertelsmann last year — described as being more like one-third.
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Categories: Today in Books