Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter pleading them to further inspect the PGA Tour’s deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to house commercial operations under a new entity.
In the letter, which was obtained by ESPN, Warren and Wyden wrote the deal would “enable the Saudi government’s efforts to ‘sports wash’ its egregious human rights record” and “raises an array of potential legal and regulatory issues, including relating to the PGA Tour’s non-profit tax status and antitrust law.”
The senators argued the proposed deal violates the Clayton Act, which aims to regulate business practices and prohibits anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions, as well as the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits actions to limit interstate commerce and competition in a marketplace.
“A merger also would give the newly formed entity monopsony power over golfers,” Warren and Wyden wrote. “When LIV was still a threat to the PGA Tour’s dominant position over golf tournaments in the United States, the two were in fierce competition for golfers and offered increasingly higher tournament prizes as a result. This merger-to-monopoly intentionally eliminates LIV as a potential competitor and would likely cause the new entity to reverse the pattern of newly increased tournament prizes for its golfers.”
The Federal Trade Commission continues to hold an aggressive stance against mergers and acquisitions. Deals to fall through at the hands of the Department of Justice and FTC include: Lockheed Martin’s acquisition of Aerojet, Penguin Random’s House takeover of Smith & Schuster and most recently the merger between American Airlines and JetBlue last month.
Meanwhile, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sent a letter to congressional members last week claiming the Tour was “left on our own” to…
Source : cbssports
