Department of Justice sues to halt theater-ad merger

The New York Post reports:

The Department of Justice wants to zap this movie-ad merger.

The Feds are suing to block a union between the No. 1 seller of cinema ads, National CineMedia, and its scrappy rival, Screenvision.

National CineMedia saw its shares drop 21.8 percent, to close at $12.44, in three years after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit in order to torpedo the $375 million merger with its smaller rival.

Later in the day, the suit continued to hurt the company’s stock, with investors pushing down National CineMedia’s stock price by as much as 26 percent.

Screenvision’s aggressive efforts to take share from the dominant National CineMedia left its competitor with few options but to make an offer to buy its rival.

The feds, however, don’t like the idea of a single player controlling 88 percent of the market.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has over 90% of the futures market share in the United States , how come the Justice Department doesn't go after them? Is it because Rahm Emanuel and Chris Dodd's wife were on the board of directors at one time or another? For more on the scam of anti-trust please read this article from Professor Thomas DiLorenzo and this book from Professor Dominick T. Armentano.