Hello there, welcome back. It's great to be with you again. This is Mlex's podcast, covering the best in regulatory affairs. My name is James Panicki, and I'm a senior editor with Emlex's Asia Pacific team.

Now you may have heard of the ALDI effect, that is the theory, suggesting that when the

German discount supermarket moves into your neighbourhood, it usually prompts other

supermarkets in the area to lower their prices.

But what about the airline industry?

Can discount operators spark a similar jolt to the market?

Well, the US Department of Justice believe so, which is why it has teamed up with six

state attorneys general, as well as the District of Columbia, to ensure that a partnership

between American Airlines and low-cost

carrier JetBlue doesn't go ahead. And as we'll hear, there's a lot at stake here. In fact,

it has become the showcase trial for regulators' fight against industry concentration.

Luckily for us, our New York-based M&A correspondent, Serafina Smith, has been following the

trial, and Flavia Fortes, Mlex's Global Head of Mergers, has also been making sense of

it all, and they both join me now.

Okay, so Flavia, the DOJ has referred to the case as unprecedented.

What aspects of this case was it referring to?

Yeah, so it's interesting actually in their press release challenging the deal that they mentioned

unprecedented five times. So normally when we see merger challenges, we have a full acquisition

where you have the elimination of arrival, when it's a vertical deal,

you know, there's concerns with discrimination against rivals. And generally, joint ventures

and partnerships are viewed as pro-competitive, as bringing synergies. And what we have here is

this alliance that it's like they're aligning their interests, they're aligning their business,

...