August 2022 proposed for PRH and S&S deal court challenge

The Department of Justice is aiming to begin court proceedings against Penguin Random House owner Bertelsmann on 1st August 2022, in a bid to block the publisher from acquiring Simon & Schuster in a $2.2bn deal. 

The deal was announced in November 2020 in a sale negotiated by S&S parent company ViacomCBS. The proposed merger would see S&S continue to be managed as a separate publishing unit under the PRH umbrella. The Department of Justice (DoJ) moved to block the deal last month. 

In a joint submission by all parties to the district court of Columbia, 1st August is proposed as the date for a trial. All parties have agreed to end the proceedings as quickly as possible, ahead of the deal's termination date in November 2022. Each side would be allowed to call up to 30 people as final trial witnesses, not excluding expert representatives.

Last month, the DoJ said the sale could be detrimental to authors. Its 26-page case DoJ filing reads: “If Defendants’ proposed merger is allowed to proceed, Penguin Random House would be, by far, the largest book publisher in the United States, towering over its rivals. The merger would give Penguin Random House outsized influence over who and what is published, and how much authors are paid for their work.” 

Both publishers vowed to fight the lawsuit "vigorously". In a joint statement, both publishing houses said the merger would be a "pro-consumer, pro-author, and pro-bookseller transaction", saying it will result in increased investment in the publishing programmes of both S&S and PRH. 

The UK's Competition & Markets Authority investigated the sale but cleared it in May. However, it faced greater opposition in the US, where the Authors Guild and other writers groups called for the DoJ to take action.