Random House/Penguin Merger

A Compass Lexecon team including Professor Robert Willig, Mary Coleman, Jonathan Bowater, and Maria Stoyadinova assisted Jacqueline Grise and Mark Schechter of Cooley LLP, outside counsel to Bertelsmann, and Harry Robins and Scott Stempel of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, outside counsel to Pearson, in seeking DOJ approval of the proposed merger between Random House (a subsidiary of Bertelsmann) and Penguin (a subsidiary of Pearson). It was commonly viewed that a Second Request was highly likely. The Compass Lexecon team joined counsel in presenting persuasive evidence to the DOJ in meetings and white paper material demonstrating that concentration in publishing today, when accurately assessed, does not raise competition concerns, and that the digital publishing revolution has created powerful new avenues of competition. As DOJ granted early termination, the parties did not need to substantially comply with the Second Request. Before the early termination was granted, Compass Lexecon also assisted in preparing the draft responses to the Second Request. While clearance for the proposed merger is still being sought in other jurisdictions, including the European Union and Canada, the U.S. Department of Justice closed its investigation in mid-February 2013.