Regulators Blocked a Merger. Then the Layoffs Began

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amazon is a frequent target for Elizabeth Warren, among others, but after its acquisition of iRobot fell through, the Roomba maker said it was cutting its workforce by 31% and reducing R&D spending. Meantime, a judge stops a merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, and Sen. Bernie Sanders demands that pharma CEOs testify before Congress to explain their pricing policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.0	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
0:37.0	Business keeps hitting walls in Washington as Amazon scraps a deal to buy iRobot and the
0:46.0	justice department stops a merger of Spirit Airlines and JetBlue.
0:50.2	Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal.
0:53.7	We are joined today by my colleagues, columnist Alicia Finley and Kim Strassal.
0:59.7	Washington versus Business is an old story, but we've added a few new chapters
1:04.3	here in recent days and Alicia I know you in particular have been following these
1:08.6	closely so let's start with this Amazon IRobot deal.
1:13.2	Here was the announcement on Monday.
1:16.1	It says they've entered into a mutual agreement
1:18.9	to terminate their previously announced acquisition
1:22.1	that was signed on August 4th, 2022.
1:25.3	So about a year and a half later this deal is not now going to go through.
1:30.5	What happened and what do you suppose the consequences of this are?
1:34.0	So as you point out this deal has been kind of put on ice for last year and half since it was announced
	...

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