Tribune Media, Sinclair suits reveal a reality-TV-style merger breakup

Corporate lawsuits are rarely riveting, but Tribune Media's $1 billion complaint against Sinclair Broadcasting is full of juicy details about an affair gone bad. Tribune Media pulled the plug in Aug in the proposed merger of the TV station operators after regulators signaled they would likely oppose it. The same day, Tribune filed a lawsuit in Delaware's state chancery court, blaming Sinclair for the failed deal. "Sinclair fought, threatened, insulted, and misled regulators in a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to retain control over stations that it was obligated to sell," Tribune Media alleges in the lawsuit.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, Benton Foundation senior counselor and a law professor at Georgetown University's Institute for Public Representation who opposed the merger along with other activists against enlarging Sinclair, says he thinks Tribune may have the upper hand in the litigation because Sinclair "was the party that would not accept Department of Justice divestiture requests and stands accused of misrepresenting facts to the Federal Communications Commission." Nonetheless, Schwartzman says he expects Sinclair to continue its "track record as a hard-line and truculent litigant."