The Latest Bid for Simon & Schuster Demonstrates Antitrust Enforcement Gains & the Urgent Need to Take on Amazon’s Monopoly Over Books

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 7, 2023 

CONTACT: Ashley Woolheater, woolheater@openmarketsinstitute.org 

WASHINGTON, DC – Open Markets Institute Executive Director Barry Lynn released the following statement concerning KKR’s bid to purchase book publisher Simon & Schuster. 

“For those who care about enforcing antimonopoly principles and bolstering democratic markets, there are two core takeaways from KKR’s bid to purchase Simon & Schuster: First, U.S. antimonopoly law can indeed be used to promote a more competitive, more open, more democratic market for America’s book authors and book readers to share their ideas and their art.

As Jonathan Kanter, the head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice said after a judge upheld the government’s decision to block Penguin Random House’s purchase of Simon & Schuster, the previous bid for the publishing house, ‘the proposed merger would have reduced competition, decreased author compensation, diminished the breadth, depth, and diversity of our stories and ideas, and ultimately impoverished our democracy.’

Second, rather than weigh any further consolidation, publishers should now turn their attention, money and time to helping the U.S. government prepare a winning case against Amazon’s book business for its disruptive, antidemocractic, and politically dangerous monopolization of America’s market for books.”

Open Markets and its partners previously -- and successfully -- urged regulators to block Penguin Random House’s purchase of Simon & Schuster, one of the book giant’s largest competitors, and continues to urge the U.S. government to correct the root cause of the race to consolidate and eliminate competitive markets by bringing antitrust lawsuit against Amazon for its monopolization of and anti-competitive practices in America’s books market. 

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