Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash Podcasts. Now, turning to
Speaker 1: the A T and T Time Warner deal, Federal Judge
Speaker 1: Richard Leon rejected the Justice Department's bid to block that
Speaker 1: proposed billion dollar acquisition of Time Warner, a decision that
Speaker 1: could lead to much more consolidation in the media sector.
Speaker 1: Just after the decision was announced, A T and T
Speaker 1: s lead lawyer Daniel Petrocelli addressed the media. I've been
Speaker 1: asked by many people, what is the significance of this
Speaker 1: transaction on many other deals that are appending in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: You know, my answer to that is that each and
Speaker 1: every one of these transactions stands on its own, as
Speaker 1: this one did. Joining us is Marianne Halford, global Media
Speaker 1: and Entertainment strategist at O C and C Strategy Consulting. Marianne,
Speaker 1: do you agree with Petrocelli or will consolidation accelerate and
Speaker 1: big media grow bigger? Well? I agree on both fronts. Um.
Speaker 1: I think each deal will be looked at on its own.
Speaker 1: But I think this has been an awesome month. It
Speaker 1: is an awesome month now for anybody who is a
Speaker 1: telco communications operator because the world is now open for
Speaker 1: vertical integration in in a way that I think is
Speaker 1: fairly significant. UM. Needless to say, we know Comcast will
Speaker 1: be issuing its formal bid either today or tomorrow. Many
Speaker 1: say today. Um, but you know what what does Charter
Speaker 1: wind up doing? Do they start to enter into the fray?
Speaker 1: What will other companies start doing in this space? And
Speaker 1: also they have another wind behind their backs right now,
Speaker 1: and another reason to want to buy up some of
Speaker 1: these valuable mediasets is the fact that net neutrality is
Speaker 1: is fading away. At the same time, the media companies
Speaker 1: all know that they need to go direct to consumer. Um.
Speaker 1: They do not want to be running into the arms
Speaker 1: of Google and Facebook and Amazon. They want to figure
Speaker 1: out how they can get direct access to consumers. And
Speaker 1: given that they have been working with a number of
Speaker 1: these larger operators for years and years, I think they
Speaker 1: may feel a little bit more comfortable embracing their arms
Speaker 1: than uh, those of the fangs if you will, um
Speaker 1: out in California. Um, so yes, I think there'll be
Speaker 1: a lot more activity coming coming on board here and
Speaker 1: it will be an exciting space to watch over the
Speaker 1: coming months. Marianne, what do you think are the chances
Speaker 1: that the Justice Department will appeal this ruling? You know,
Speaker 1: of course we're not talking about our normal presidency, so
Speaker 1: we're not necessarily always talking about a normal Justice Department either. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's been actually quite interesting that it's been
Speaker 1: somewhat silent and quiet. Um in some respects. I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is a fight that they want to
Speaker 1: pursue right now. Um, there's a lot of other things happening. Um.
Speaker 1: The judge really didn't give them a lot of leeway
Speaker 1: for appealing, because really the judge basically didn't listen, don't
Speaker 1: don't don't bother that requesting a stay. He says, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to grant one. But it's based on whether
Speaker 1: he did, whether there are any errors during the trial.
Speaker 1: It's not based on what the judge says, which was
Speaker 1: don't appeal. That's true, that's true, but you know, let's see,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I really can't make a judgment there
Speaker 1: so UM, let's taking let's say that they don't appeal.
Speaker 1: What will this decision do you think have any effect
Speaker 1: on whether the government opposes future media deals? Well, I
Speaker 1: think this one was a unique situation. UM. You know, listen,
Speaker 1: Jeff Zucker is the guy that actually allowed Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to run for president because he's the guy that green
Speaker 1: let the Apprentice, and then Trump's expected Zucker to be
Speaker 1: very kind to him on CNN, and he was trying
Speaker 1: to be, if you will, UH, a proper journalistic institution.
Speaker 1: So it was a very interesting and unique situation. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, clearly, when UH Disney announced its intense to
Speaker 1: buy Fox, Trump applauded that deal. Though that's a horizontal
Speaker 1: merger and not a vertical merger. UM, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I go back to petor Chilly here is
Speaker 1: that each decision is going to have to be evaluated
Speaker 1: on its own, and UH, given the President of the
Speaker 1: United States who he is and his varying opinions on
Speaker 1: different things, that it will depend upon each situation. All
Speaker 1: that's being said, though, I still think there's going to
Speaker 1: be a lot more consolidation going on. Um, it's clear
Speaker 1: that does that mean higher prices? Will that mean higher
Speaker 1: prices for consumers? Got to get that question. I think
Speaker 1: ultimately you can wind up see I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: you got have the the uh, the combining of net
Speaker 1: neutrality and this decision coming together all at the same time.
Speaker 1: I think could wind up leading to higher prices. And
Speaker 1: also the media companies are going to be more and
Speaker 1: more resistant, if you know, if they wind up continuing
Speaker 1: to get bought up by these larger companies, they're going
Speaker 1: to become more and more resistant to providing content to
Speaker 1: the uh, the amazons and to the net is as well.
Speaker 1: In fact, with Netflix they're all uh holding back a
Speaker 1: lot of their content now, um, and that will continue.
Speaker 1: So yes, I do think you could see higher prices
Speaker 1: for consumers, um, not right away, but over time. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, thanks so much, Marianne. That's Marianne Halford. She
Speaker 1: is with O C and C Strategy Consulting. A reminder,
Speaker 1: you can listen to all of today's interviews, as well
Speaker 1: as past episodes of the show anytime on Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com slash podcast. That's Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Omb
Speaker 1: director and acting cfp B chief Mick mulvaney told reporters
Speaker 1: yesterday the Trump administration will adhere to a June twenty
Speaker 1: second deadline to pick a permanent director for the Consumer
Speaker 1: Protection Agency. Speaking with Bloomberg earlier this year, mulvaney said
Speaker 1: that the head of the CFPB, no matter who it is,
Speaker 1: has too much power. My objections to the bureau remain
Speaker 1: the same, which is the structure is completely Um, it's irrational.
Speaker 1: I have way too much authority as an individual. Jesse
Speaker 1: Westbrook's Bloomberg News Financial regulation editor. He joins us now
Speaker 1: by phone for more on this story, and Jesse, some
Speaker 1: interesting names getting kicked around here on who might replace
Speaker 1: mcmilvany and become the permanent CFPB director. Who are they? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean some of the people are being interviewed are
Speaker 1: darryl Issa, a Republican congressman from Orange County. UM. Obviously
Speaker 1: his political career in Congress is is sort of nearing
Speaker 1: an end, so maybe he's looking for work. We Uh,
Speaker 1: we have others such as, uh, the guy who runs
Speaker 1: the credit union regulator. UM. I mean, I think you
Speaker 1: consistently expect that all of these people will continue the
Speaker 1: work that mcmilvany is doing. Of sort of defanging this
Speaker 1: watchdog and irritating Democrats on Capitol Hill. Do you see
Speaker 1: any pattern in the people's names that have been mentioned
Speaker 1: so far. I don't know that there's a pattern. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're there. They are all conservative Republicans, people who have
Speaker 1: a different attitude to regulation than than what we saw
Speaker 1: under the Obama administration. Um. I mean, it's it's a
Speaker 1: routine thing that once people come to the swamp and
Speaker 1: they have political careers, and those political careers start start
Speaker 1: running dry, they start looking for jobs elsewhere. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's interesting, particularly on the Republicans side.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of the people who criticize all
Speaker 1: these agencies, but then they often end up working at them. Well,
Speaker 1: we know that that mcmulvaney has been highly critical of
Speaker 1: the agency. He's been trying to roll back at least
Speaker 1: some of its enforcement and actions. But for any real
Speaker 1: change around the authority of the CFP director director or
Speaker 1: the structure of the CFPB, that would be up to Congress. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, I mean, and and that requires sixty votes.
Speaker 1: And and that's why in the Big Dot Frank rollback bill,
Speaker 1: we just saw that the past Congress nothing touching the
Speaker 1: CFPP was in there because there are not sixty votes
Speaker 1: to to rip up and and and overhaul the CFPB.
Speaker 1: But if if you have someone who doesn't believe in
Speaker 1: the mission of the agency running the place, you know
Speaker 1: they can not sue companies. They can take sort of
Speaker 1: a lass affair attitude to enforcing rules. Um, they can
Speaker 1: reassign staffers to unimportant jobs. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: you can do if you do not believe in the
Speaker 1: mission of an agency. So Jesse obviously Nick mulvanny didn't
Speaker 1: have to go through a Senate confirmation hearing. But for
Speaker 1: someone else who wants to take this job, who is
Speaker 1: nominated to take this job, who doesn't like the agency
Speaker 1: basically or doesn't support the agency's mission, will they have
Speaker 1: a hard time getting Senate confirmation. I I don't think so,
Speaker 1: because remember, you don't need sixty votes to get confirmed
Speaker 1: in the Senate um. All you need is a is
Speaker 1: a simple majority. That's unlike legislation. I have a hard
Speaker 1: time believing that in most cases Republicans in the Senate
Speaker 1: are are not going to approve Trump's nominees um, particularly
Speaker 1: for this agency that is not liked by the financial
Speaker 1: services industry, which donates a lot of money to Republican lawmakers.
Speaker 1: So I understand that the CFP director director, no matter
Speaker 1: who it is, has some flexibility in bringing enforcement cases.
Speaker 1: But there are certain enforcement cases that might be particularly egregious.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I'm thinking here about all the problems
Speaker 1: Wells Fargo. I mean, so, so there are there are
Speaker 1: minimum things that the agency would do. Is that fair
Speaker 1: to say? Oh? Yeah, I mean a percent? And and
Speaker 1: the fine imposed on Wells Fargo under McK mulvaney was
Speaker 1: the agency's biggest fine ever billion dollars. Wasn't well it was.
Speaker 1: It was a billion dollars shared with the Office of
Speaker 1: the Controller of the Currency. But but whether it was
Speaker 1: shared or not, it was still the biggest fine the
Speaker 1: agency has ever done. What was interesting about that is
Speaker 1: you probably remember Trump's tweet that they were gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: come down hard on Wells Fargo. So was that a
Speaker 1: one off or was mulvaney pleasing his boss? I guess
Speaker 1: that's a question for mc mulvaney. Yes, we will find
Speaker 1: out about that one off. It seems like it is.
Speaker 1: But let's change topics here a little bit. Six Senate
Speaker 1: Democrats are asking the SEC's internal watchdog to investigate a
Speaker 1: Republican commissioner who berated City Group over its stance on
Speaker 1: companies that sell guns. Tell us more about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is an interesting story. A few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: a bunch of executives from City Group were we're inside
Speaker 1: the SEC ostensibly to talk about derivatives regulation and esoteric
Speaker 1: topic to the rest of us, but something that is
Speaker 1: very important to banks because they are heavily engaged in
Speaker 1: the derivatives markets. And and as the meeting was sort
Speaker 1: of running to an end, this Republican Commissioner, Michael pawar
Speaker 1: Uh started blasting City Group over their decision to stop
Speaker 1: financing UM companies that were doing business with gun gun dealers,
Speaker 1: and Uh and City Group executives were sort of taken aback.
Speaker 1: They they didn't think that they would go into the
Speaker 1: SEC and and get a tongue lashing about their gun policy.
Speaker 1: But that's indeed what happened. And now a Democratic lawmaker,
Speaker 1: Chris van Holland and in a handful of his Democratic colleagues,
Speaker 1: want the SEC Inspector General to investigate this and and
Speaker 1: make a conclusion about whether this was proper conduct by
Speaker 1: an SEC Commissioner Jesse Westbrook, Bloomberg News Financial Regulation Editor,
Speaker 1: thank you for all of that. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to
Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com slash podcast. I'm June Grasso. This is Bloomberg