The head of the US antitrust office withdrawn from his job at Comcast, Time Warner Cable review

WASHINGTON (Reuters): Bill Baer, ​​the top U.S. antitrust enforcer, will be excused from reviewing Comcast Corp’s (CMCA.O) proposed deal to buy Time Warner Cable Inc (NYS:TWC), the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday .

The investigation into the $45.2 billion deal will be overseen by two other Justice Department officials: Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse and Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Gelfand, a trial lawyer.

In a statement announcing the decision, the Justice Department did not say why Baer, ​​who heads the Justice Department’s antitrust division, recused himself.

When Comcast purchased NBC Universal, a deal completed in early 2011, Baer, ​​then a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter, represented NBCU’s owner, General Electric (NYS:GE).

Hesse has extensive experience in large mergers. While at the FCC, she led the team that reviewed AT&T’s proposed merger to purchase T-Mobile USA. The U.S. government challenged the deal in 2011 and the companies eventually gave in.

Comcast

Consumer advocates criticized the proposed deal because a combined Comcast and Time Warner Cable would have a nearly 30 percent share of the U.S. pay-TV market and would be a major provider of broadband Internet access.

As U.S. agencies prepare to review the deal, Comcast is working to solidify its reputation with regulators.

On Tuesday, it announced that its discounted internet service for low-income families, Internet Essentials, would be available indefinitely. Since its launch in 2011, approximately 300,000 families have participated in the program.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz, editing by Ros Krasny and David Storey)