Cites Disney-Hulu prices which jumped 20% after June’s merger.
A Las Vegas HBO Max subscriber has proposed an antitrust class action against Netflix, Inc. in the Northern District of California to block Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The suit alleges the merger, valued at $82.7 billion, would violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act by substantially lessening competition in the U.S. subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) market. The named plaintiff says she has never subscribed to Netflix (Fenderlander v. Netflix, No. 5:25-cv-10521, N.D. Calif.).
The complaint references the effects of the Disney–Hulu merger as an example of how consolidation inflates prices. Disney finalized its ownership of Hulu in June by buying Comcast’s remaining 33% stake for $438.7 million, bringing Disney’s total investment to about $9 billion. This allows Disney to integrate Hulu with Disney+ and a forthcoming ESPN streaming service, with Hulu content set to merge into Disney+ in 2026. The Hulu app will be retired.
After taking over Hulu, Disney announced subscription prices would increase just four months later in October. The price for Disney+ with ads increased by $2 to $11.99 per month, or 20%. To subscribe without ads, it increased by $3 to $18.99, a nearly 19% jump. These hikes align with broader industry trends—akin to similar increases by Netflix, Apple TV+, and others.
In her proposed class action against Netflix, the Las Vegas HBO customer invoked Section 16 of the Clayton Act, which allows courts to block anticompetitive mergers. DOJ’s Horizontal Merger Guidelines, she argues, indicate that the resulting market concentration would be “presumed to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.” The plaintiff calls the deal “one of the more audacious horizontal mergers in recent memory,” arguing it would reduce content diversity, stifle innovation, and block new entrants from the market.
This is another in a stream of deals that continue to consolidate and integrate multiple forms of digital content — from movies to games to social media to news — under a handful of global corporations.
