# Weekend Law: Luigi Pleads, Meta's $1.4 Trillion Trial & NFL Antitrust

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 15 Aug 2026, 37 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/f2976de3-c441-4c53-81c6-b4a7016345fa/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Criminal defense attorney Jeremy Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor, discusses Luigi Mangione’s plea to federal charges of stalking without a plea deal in place. Internet law expert Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University Law School and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute, discusses dozens of state attorneys general suing Meta for harm to the mental health of youth. Antitrust expert Harry First, a professor at NYU Law School, discusses an antitrust inquiry into the NFL’s exemption. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June grosseol from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:08] Speaker 2: This was not a spontaneous act of violence. It was deliberate, calculated,
[0:15] Speaker 2: and premeditated.
[0:16] Speaker 3: Luigi Mangioni pleaded guilty on Friday to two federal stalking
[0:21] Speaker 3: charges in the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson,
[0:26] Speaker 3: admitting matter of factly that he trailed the executive to
[0:30] Speaker 3: an investor conference and gunned him down on a New
[0:33] Speaker 3: York City street in twenty twenty four. After the plea,
[0:37] Speaker 3: Mangioni's attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, echoed what he had said
[0:42] Speaker 3: in his allocution to the court that he endured years
[0:45] Speaker 3: of severe pain from a broken back while struggling to
[0:49] Speaker 3: navigate the obstacles of the healthcare system.
[0:52] Speaker 4: Like the thousands of people who've reached out since this
[0:55] Speaker 4: tragedy to share their own experiences, he believed that the
[0:58] Speaker 4: system had failed him and destroyed his life.
[1:01] Speaker 3: Mangione's state trial on murder and weapons charges is set
[1:06] Speaker 3: to start on September eighth, but his lawyers have filed
[1:09] Speaker 3: a motion to dismiss the state trial under New York's
[1:13] Speaker 3: double jeopardy statute.
[1:14] Speaker 4: It was a single tragic event, yet he's being prosecuted
[1:18] Speaker 4: twice for the same conduct.
[1:20] Speaker 3: Federal prosecutors didn't give Mangioni any deal or incentive to
[1:25] Speaker 3: plead guilty. In fact, Manhattan US Attorney Jamie McDonald said
[1:30] Speaker 3: that they'll ask for a sentence of life in prison
[1:33] Speaker 3: when he's sentenced on December eighteenth.
[1:35] Speaker 2: There are no accommodations or concessions, and we are free
[1:38] Speaker 2: to seek the maximum penalty under the law.
[1:41] Speaker 3: My guest, his criminal defense attorney Jeremy saland a former
[1:45] Speaker 3: Manhattan prosecutor, Jeremy It's not often you see a defend
[1:49] Speaker 3: in pleading guilty to every charge without a plead deal
[1:53] Speaker 3: in place.
[1:55] Speaker 5: If you're going to plead to an entire indictment, you
[1:57] Speaker 5: can do so. It's exceedingly rare. In this you find
[2:00] Speaker 5: yourself in a bind, which he did here. By the way,
[2:03] Speaker 5: I break this down at least internally, and I think
[2:05] Speaker 5: it's a fair assessment. If I'm Manngioni and his defense team,
[2:08] Speaker 5: I recognize that my defenses are limited. There was at
[2:12] Speaker 5: one point an effort to pursue extreme emotional distress that
[2:15] Speaker 5: died on the proverbial line didn't go anywhere. We look
[2:18] Speaker 5: at the evidence, and we lost our hearing upon the
[2:20] Speaker 5: defense for the most part. So the evidence that was
[2:23] Speaker 5: the most damning still came in. So if we don't
[2:25] Speaker 5: have that extreme emotional distress and the evidence is pretty damning,
[2:29] Speaker 5: what is our defense? And if our defense is hoping
[2:32] Speaker 5: to get a secret centurion candidate type juror, then that's
[2:36] Speaker 5: a pretty bad defense because even if you are successful
[2:40] Speaker 5: in round one, you know the state is going to
[2:42] Speaker 5: prosecute at round two and you know that defense are
[2:45] Speaker 5: there waiting in the wings, although they clearly did not wait.
[2:48] Speaker 5: So he was really stuck. And I'd rather be doing
[2:51] Speaker 5: my time in a federal peditentiary than in Attica or
[2:55] Speaker 5: sing Sing or green Haven. And for those who do
[2:57] Speaker 5: not know, you should visit from the outside. Scary scary places.
[3:01] Speaker 3: So do you think that the evidence was so overwhelming
[3:05] Speaker 3: as we've heard it described that the only real choice
[3:08] Speaker 3: was federal prison over state prison.
[3:11] Speaker 5: The evidence is overwhelming and if you lack those, you know,
[3:14] Speaker 5: the mental health defense, extreme emultionim distress or some other
[3:17] Speaker 5: insanity type play, there's no question of identity. And all
[3:21] Speaker 5: that damning evidence motive intent came in with things were
[3:24] Speaker 5: written in video and all that. Again, you see the
[3:27] Speaker 5: writing on the wall. If you lack the defense, why
[3:30] Speaker 5: am I going to have two trials? Why am I
[3:33] Speaker 5: going to risk being in a state penitentiary? Why am
[3:35] Speaker 5: I going to risk life in prison with the state.
[3:37] Speaker 5: So I think, if I had to choose, I would
[3:40] Speaker 5: rather be with defense, and at least I have a chance,
[3:43] Speaker 5: albeit a small one, to limit my exposure on the
[3:46] Speaker 5: back end in terms of that sentence from the court.
[3:48] Speaker 5: But I don't see how the court does that the
[3:50] Speaker 5: meaning give him much of anything less than that life
[3:52] Speaker 5: without parole. I mean a little bit potentially, certainly, But
[3:56] Speaker 5: you're a young man. You know, twenty thirty years in
[3:58] Speaker 5: prison you get paroled is still long time.
[4:01] Speaker 3: The judge asked the federal prosecutors about the advisory guidelines.
[4:06] Speaker 3: They said the guideline range was between twenty four to
[4:10] Speaker 3: thirty six years in prison. So why wouldn't the judge
[4:13] Speaker 3: follow those guidelines instead of sentencing him to life.
[4:18] Speaker 5: Because if a stature authorizes you to do that, we
[4:21] Speaker 5: know the death penalty is off the table. This is
[4:23] Speaker 5: sort of rhetorical question, and I think we can all
[4:25] Speaker 5: answer it differently. But what's the value of the life
[4:28] Speaker 5: meaning taking a life, and the punishment and the deturn factor.
[4:32] Speaker 5: So I think all things, you know, are on the
[4:34] Speaker 5: table for the court. You know, I would not have
[4:36] Speaker 5: been surprised if when he was allocuting and asked questions about,
[4:39] Speaker 5: you know, whether you understand your rights and you're giving
[4:41] Speaker 5: a right to a trial and the opportune to discuss
[4:43] Speaker 5: with your attorney and all those different things. He was asked,
[4:46] Speaker 5: you know, he was under the influence of any drugs,
[4:47] Speaker 5: and I think only medication he said he had taken
[4:49] Speaker 5: was a sleeping cot, which really is counter to the
[4:52] Speaker 5: argument that my client has mentally ill and has suffered
[4:55] Speaker 5: from all of these issues. So by not saying anything,
[4:57] Speaker 5: either he's going to call him later on he really
[4:59] Speaker 5: was attorney's throw him to shut his mouth, and therefore
[5:02] Speaker 5: I didn't get my truth out, or he's really not
[5:05] Speaker 5: and now you've lost the opportunity to argue that in
[5:07] Speaker 5: large part in your sentencing.
[5:09] Speaker 3: That sounds like real defense attorney thinking. So all along
[5:13] Speaker 3: the defense attorneys have been arguing that the state and
[5:16] Speaker 3: federal prosecutions constitute double jeopardy, And right after the plea,
[5:21] Speaker 3: the defense attorneys came out and said, they just filed
[5:24] Speaker 3: e motion seeking dismissal of the state's case, arguing that
[5:29] Speaker 3: New York law prohibits defendants from being prosecuted twice for
[5:33] Speaker 3: the same crime. So that was the real plan then,
[5:36] Speaker 3: to get the state case dismissed.
[5:39] Speaker 5: Yeah, June, of course, you know when I started off
[5:42] Speaker 5: with TIF. You can limit it to one and give
[5:45] Speaker 5: yourself an argument as best as possible to avoid the
[5:48] Speaker 5: maximum time incarcerated, and you could find yourself in a
[5:52] Speaker 5: federal prison, which is no cakewalk, don't get me wrong,
[5:54] Speaker 5: as opposed to a state prison. Win would be an overstatement,
[5:57] Speaker 5: but it's better than the alternative.
[6:00] Speaker 3: So tell us what the defense double jeopardy argument is
[6:04] Speaker 3: and what their chances are of getting the state case dismissed.
[6:08] Speaker 5: So, generally speaking, there is a rule of sovereignty that
[6:12] Speaker 5: says you can have two parallel proceedings even if they
[6:16] Speaker 5: stem from really the same incident, meaning federal in state.
[6:19] Speaker 5: New York has its own rules, and that limits the
[6:22] Speaker 5: ability for the state to prosecute if the underlying criminal
[6:27] Speaker 5: transaction and offense is the same. That in part was
[6:30] Speaker 5: changed and made it even tighter with Paul Manifort when
[6:35] Speaker 5: New York prosecuted him for what was really the same crimes,
[6:39] Speaker 5: the same transactions, even more so than this court said no,
[6:42] Speaker 5: you can't prosecute Paul mannatfort. So that rule applies here too.
[6:47] Speaker 5: But I think there is some color for the prosecution
[6:50] Speaker 5: to push back whether they're going to be successful in
[6:52] Speaker 5: a different animal, But they do have some arguments to make.
[6:54] Speaker 5: For example, in court today, as I understand, demand Jones
[6:58] Speaker 5: admitted to shooting mister Thompson and putting him in fear
[7:01] Speaker 5: of his safety or something to that effect, but he
[7:03] Speaker 5: did not admit to intentionally murdering Thompson. That wasn't required
[7:08] Speaker 5: as part of the stalking plea. Now setting us out
[7:10] Speaker 5: whether that's justice where you're getting to plead to something
[7:12] Speaker 5: else on a homicide intentional murder to stalking. That's a
[7:15] Speaker 5: separate question, and I think a valuable one. But the
[7:18] Speaker 5: elements are different in these crimes, and the allocution is
[7:21] Speaker 5: important here. Also the stalking, the harm intended by the
[7:25] Speaker 5: stalking statue, you know, is different than that of the
[7:28] Speaker 5: murder too, So there is some color there to argue,
[7:31] Speaker 5: But I still think it's a tough lift. One other thing,
[7:33] Speaker 5: anything he said in that court room. Remember under oath
[7:36] Speaker 5: is usable against him for sure, and that state prosecution
[7:39] Speaker 5: if it ever were to rear its head and be
[7:41] Speaker 5: able to be pursued.
[7:42] Speaker 3: So Mangioni read from a prepared statement during the hearing,
[7:47] Speaker 3: and part of it talked about years of enduring severe
[7:51] Speaker 3: pain from a broken back and having to navigate the
[7:55] Speaker 3: obstacles of the healthcare system. His attorney also mentioned that
[7:59] Speaker 3: when she spoke outside the courthouse, does that tell us
[8:02] Speaker 3: they're going to use that in his sentencing to try
[8:06] Speaker 3: to mitigate the severity of his sentence.
[8:09] Speaker 5: Everything that Karen and Marc Agniffolos stated and said was
[8:13] Speaker 5: intentional and deliberate, and they're both phenomenal attorneys, so we
[8:17] Speaker 5: should expect delaying the foundation. My response to that is
[8:22] Speaker 5: very simply that is neither here nor there. If I'm
[8:26] Speaker 5: the judge, it does not give you the right to
[8:29] Speaker 5: take a man's life and strip his family of his
[8:33] Speaker 5: love and compassion and partnership. Take a hike, mister Mangoni,
[8:37] Speaker 5: your day is done.
[8:39] Speaker 3: Mangioni's attorney said that he's been treated differently from every
[8:45] Speaker 3: other defendant charged in New York with the same crime and.
[8:49] Speaker 4: Has successfully fought off terrorism charges and the death penalty
[8:54] Speaker 4: while also fighting at the same time, two simultaneous prosecutions
[8:59] Speaker 4: in two jury dictions.
[9:00] Speaker 3: Do you think he's been treated differently?
[9:03] Speaker 5: Sobsolutely there, unequivocally correct. And I hope those in charge,
[9:11] Speaker 5: from the US Attorney and the Southern District of New
[9:14] Speaker 5: York on up recognized they had no place in this prosecution.
[9:18] Speaker 5: They had no place seeking the death penalty. And what
[9:21] Speaker 5: I mean by that is not that it weren't a
[9:24] Speaker 5: potential death penalty if you believe in the death penalty.
[9:26] Speaker 5: That's not my point. My point is when I start
[9:29] Speaker 5: seeing and you start seeing June, and average New Yorker
[9:31] Speaker 5: starts seeing them going after domestic abusers who cross state
[9:35] Speaker 5: lines with guns and kill their intimate partners with the
[9:39] Speaker 5: same fortitude and intention and zealousness as they did man Gione,
[9:44] Speaker 5: then we can have a different conversation. But they don't.
[9:47] Speaker 5: They don't, they don't. This is all about ego. It's
[9:50] Speaker 5: still about the arrogance of the Southern District. And also
[9:54] Speaker 5: a piece of this is I think retribution against Alvin
[9:57] Speaker 5: brad for prosecuting Donald Trump. It may not have started
[10:00] Speaker 5: that way because started under Biden, but it also was
[10:02] Speaker 5: we're going to wait for the prosecution in the state
[10:04] Speaker 5: to go through, and it devolved into let's seek the
[10:07] Speaker 5: death penalty and let's brush the state aside. And if
[10:11] Speaker 5: you want more proof of that, I would bet my
[10:13] Speaker 5: career on the fact that Alvin Bragg and the prosecutors
[10:18] Speaker 5: in Manhattan did not know that the defense and the
[10:22] Speaker 5: federal prosecutors were in conversation about a plea. Hence this
[10:25] Speaker 5: apparent spur of the moment on Friday. Let's get it
[10:28] Speaker 5: in there, and let's get a plea. That's not judicial economy,
[10:31] Speaker 5: doing the right thing for the court system, because it's
[10:33] Speaker 5: overburdened and there's a lot of people warranting that attention.
[10:36] Speaker 5: The prosecutors have other homicides and horrible sex crimes, violent
[10:40] Speaker 5: crimes that demand their attention. The financial equity, the emotional equity,
[10:45] Speaker 5: the capital put into this, it's a disgusting injustice, not
[10:49] Speaker 5: injustice in the sense that by far and away June,
[10:51] Speaker 5: obviously a man was murdered and his name is lost.
[10:54] Speaker 5: His name is Brian Thompson. In case we forget, it's
[10:56] Speaker 5: not Manzoni. He is dead and his family is traumatized.
[10:59] Speaker 5: That's not what the Southern District cared about. They wanted
[11:02] Speaker 5: this prosecution. They landed on an aircraft carrier, had fireworks
[11:05] Speaker 5: going off, and they took Mangoni and brought him into custody.
[11:08] Speaker 5: That's what this was about. And that's disappointing because this
[11:12] Speaker 5: deserved the attention of the state prosecutors, which it did.
[11:16] Speaker 5: And in the end, if this is the last thing
[11:18] Speaker 5: that stands is he convicted of murder? Did he plead
[11:20] Speaker 5: to intentionally murdering Brian Thompson? No, that's terrible to me.
[11:25] Speaker 3: Well, MANGIONI may yet be tried for murder and state court.
[11:29] Speaker 3: Bragg's office said they're prepared to litigate the defense motions.
[11:33] Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Jeremy. That's criminal defense attorney Jeremy Saland.
[11:38] Speaker 3: Coming up next, State attorneys general are demanding one point
[11:42] Speaker 3: four trillion dollars in damages from Meta over youth social
[11:47] Speaker 3: media addiction. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg.
[11:53] Speaker 5: Now they must pay the price for the choice that
[11:56] Speaker 5: they made to put profits over to of safety.
[12:01] Speaker 3: In a landmark decision this month, New Mexico's Attorney General
[12:05] Speaker 3: won a nine hundred and forty two million dollar judgment
[12:09] Speaker 3: against Meta after a jury found the social media giant
[12:13] Speaker 3: knowingly harmed children's mental health. That verdict may pale in
[12:18] Speaker 3: comparison to the potential verdict. Meta is facing at a
[12:22] Speaker 3: federal trial where a coalition of twenty nine state attorneys
[12:26] Speaker 3: general accused the company of engaging in deceptive business practices
[12:31] Speaker 3: that exploit and manipulate young users, leading to a mental
[12:35] Speaker 3: health crisis. My guest is an expert in internet law,
[12:40] Speaker 3: Professor Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University Law School. Eric
[12:44] Speaker 3: tell us about the stakes in this trial.
[12:46] Speaker 1: In this trial, the state attorney's general are pursuing the
[12:50] Speaker 1: social media defendants for a number of claims, including claiming
[12:53] Speaker 1: that they are a public nuisance. The state attorneys general
[12:57] Speaker 1: have asked for one point four trillion dollars worth damages, which,
[13:01] Speaker 1: if issued, would represent a major chunk of the overall
[13:06] Speaker 1: value that those entities are worth. The case also potentially
[13:11] Speaker 1: puts in play structural remedies that would change how social
[13:15] Speaker 1: media services operate. So between the damages of words and
[13:21] Speaker 1: the possibility of structural reform, it's possible that these cases
[13:25] Speaker 1: will change social media structurally.
[13:28] Speaker 3: The state attorneys general are saying that Meta designed the
[13:32] Speaker 3: platforms to get children and teenagers hooked. Tell us more
[13:37] Speaker 3: about the allegations here.
[13:39] Speaker 1: There's a lot of allegations, so it's a little hard
[13:40] Speaker 1: to summarize. You hinted at one of them. The State
[13:43] Speaker 1: of the Attorneys General are arguing that social media services
[13:47] Speaker 1: were designed to be addictive, in fact addicted the users,
[13:50] Speaker 1: and that addiction caused harm. They've also claimed, for example,
[13:53] Speaker 1: that the social media services knew about that addictive attributes
[13:58] Speaker 1: and harm and failed to disclads it to the public.
[14:01] Speaker 1: And they're also claiming that the consequences of this addiction
[14:05] Speaker 1: are harming society generally.
[14:07] Speaker 3: Obviously, Meta denies the allegations. What specifically has it said?
[14:12] Speaker 1: The social media defendants are depending on a wide range
[14:15] Speaker 1: of grounds that the claims that are being advanced against
[14:18] Speaker 1: them simply don't fit the facts, that what the social
[14:22] Speaker 1: media services have done is not illegal and therefore there
[14:27] Speaker 1: should be no remedy for it. They have argued that
[14:30] Speaker 1: the First Amendment applies to their decisions, that they're acting
[14:33] Speaker 1: like publishers, making editorial decisions and basing liability on those
[14:38] Speaker 1: editorial decisions is in consists of the First Amendment, and
[14:41] Speaker 1: they're claiming that section two thirty applies. Section two there
[14:45] Speaker 1: says websites are liable for third party content, and a
[14:48] Speaker 1: lot of the arguments about addiction are ultimately about the
[14:52] Speaker 1: delivery of third party content, and therefore the social media
[14:56] Speaker 1: defendants argue that Section two thirty should preempt those claims.
[15:00] Speaker 3: I was expected to last about seven weeks. What kind
[15:03] Speaker 3: of witnesses will the state ags likely call to try
[15:07] Speaker 3: to prove their case.
[15:09] Speaker 1: I think that they'll use a variety of different experts
[15:13] Speaker 1: who will try to bolster the argument that the social
[15:16] Speaker 1: media services engaged in addictive practices and in fact caused harm.
[15:23] Speaker 1: Both of those propositions are not scientifically established. The state
[15:28] Speaker 1: ags will have to make a case for them. I
[15:31] Speaker 1: would assume that we will hear from individual victims. We
[15:35] Speaker 1: might also hear from former company employees who have inside information,
[15:39] Speaker 1: and maybe others.
[15:41] Speaker 3: The damages of one point four trillion dollars metas market
[15:46] Speaker 3: cap is one point five trillion. I mean, where does
[15:49] Speaker 3: that number come from?
[15:51] Speaker 1: The number might have a little bit of fiction to it.
[15:55] Speaker 1: It might be a fantasy land computation, but it doesn't
[16:00] Speaker 1: matter if that number is the right number. It really
[16:03] Speaker 1: is more the order of magnitude of the State attorney's
[16:07] Speaker 1: general position. They are saying that if the social media
[16:11] Speaker 1: services are causing as much or more damage as their
[16:15] Speaker 1: market cap, they literally shouldn't exist. They're basically trying to
[16:20] Speaker 1: drive the value of those companies to near zero. And
[16:24] Speaker 1: so that's why I think that the number is so
[16:26] Speaker 1: helpful of crystallizing the stakes of this case. It's a
[16:29] Speaker 1: reminder that the arguments that state ags are advancing potentially
[16:34] Speaker 1: make social media services untenable, not profitable, and maybe no
[16:39] Speaker 1: longer a viable market.
[16:41] Speaker 3: They're also demanding changes besides this staggering sum. The changes
[16:47] Speaker 3: to the platforms that the state ages are asking for,
[16:51] Speaker 3: would they change, you know, the very essence of the
[16:54] Speaker 3: way these companies social media platforms work.
[16:58] Speaker 1: Unquestionably, the structural remedies that are being ordered by courts
[17:03] Speaker 1: and also mandated by legislatures will change how social media operates.
[17:08] Speaker 1: What's less clear today is that they're going to change
[17:11] Speaker 1: it in a way that will materially affect our willingness
[17:15] Speaker 1: to use them. And I'm going to give you an
[17:17] Speaker 1: example because I think it's so helpful. The New Mexico
[17:21] Speaker 1: judge set a cap on the number of hours that
[17:24] Speaker 1: a user could use the service in a month. Now,
[17:27] Speaker 1: that cap was pretty generous. That's a lot of hours.
[17:30] Speaker 1: I think it was ninety. But imagine that a different
[17:32] Speaker 1: judge based on some other assessment of the science, such
[17:35] Speaker 1: that any of these decisions are based on that, besides
[17:38] Speaker 1: that the number is much much lower. Besides that only
[17:41] Speaker 1: five hours a month is permissible. At that point, then
[17:44] Speaker 1: many users will no longer be able to engage in
[17:48] Speaker 1: the community the way they're currently engaging, and it'll just
[17:51] Speaker 1: starve the ecosystem for the engagement that's been driving it.
[17:55] Speaker 1: There'll be less people there, they'll be contributing less, there'll
[17:57] Speaker 1: be less people to consume it, and as a result, well,
[18:00] Speaker 1: the ecosystem goes into a death spiral. It just you
[18:03] Speaker 1: can no longer function as the kind of vibrant conversation
[18:07] Speaker 1: that we've assumed. Now, I'm just giving you a speculative scenario.
[18:11] Speaker 1: I don't know if that scenario is going to play out,
[18:12] Speaker 1: but it's helpful to show how one small product change
[18:17] Speaker 1: ordered by a court or legislature could easily trigger a
[18:22] Speaker 1: downward spiral and multiply that by the dozens, if not hundreds,
[18:26] Speaker 1: of different product changes that courts could issue or that
[18:30] Speaker 1: legislatures have already mandated, and we can see that the
[18:34] Speaker 1: ecosystem is under extraordinary pressure and may not survive it.
[18:39] Speaker 3: Eric Meta has not fared well so far before juries
[18:43] Speaker 3: in these youth social media trials. You had the New
[18:47] Speaker 3: Mexico case and then the California case where a jury
[18:51] Speaker 3: awarded a single planet iff a young woman six million dollars.
[18:55] Speaker 1: The cases are not going well for Meta, or for
[18:57] Speaker 1: that matter, for other social media defendants. The judges and
[19:01] Speaker 1: the juries have generally looked disfavorably on the arguments that
[19:05] Speaker 1: they're making. However, these cases are all going to go
[19:08] Speaker 1: up on appeal, and there's no reason to believe that
[19:13] Speaker 1: the jury or judge verdicts are going to survive intact.
[19:18] Speaker 1: There are a number of good arguments that the defendants
[19:21] Speaker 1: will make on appeal, and if they can succeed on
[19:23] Speaker 1: any one of those arguments, it's possible that some or
[19:27] Speaker 1: all of the lower court rulings will be undone. So
[19:31] Speaker 1: I haven't put a lot of stock in where we
[19:33] Speaker 1: stand today. Other than a data points. The juries are
[19:37] Speaker 1: sending a message that they do hold social media services
[19:40] Speaker 1: culpable for harming their users. Whether or not they law
[19:46] Speaker 1: recognizes that harm and upholds the legal consequences that have
[19:50] Speaker 1: been signed to it remains to be seen on appeal.
[19:53] Speaker 3: Is the strongest argument on appeal that the social media
[19:56] Speaker 3: platforms have had immunity from secution over the content that
[20:02] Speaker 3: users post, and states are trying to sidestep that by
[20:05] Speaker 3: going after the product design features.
[20:08] Speaker 1: I think there are several strong arguments that will be
[20:11] Speaker 1: advanced on appeal in this case and in frankly all
[20:15] Speaker 1: of the cases. Section two thirty is one of those.
[20:18] Speaker 1: Section two thirty says that the services can't be responsible
[20:21] Speaker 1: for their party content and ultimately, given that their basic
[20:25] Speaker 1: business is the delivery of their party content, Section two
[20:28] Speaker 1: very clearly casts a long shadow. But I think the
[20:31] Speaker 1: First Amendment arguments are even more obvious and in some
[20:35] Speaker 1: respects even more troubling. In the end, social media services
[20:39] Speaker 1: are engaging in publication of content, whether it's third party
[20:44] Speaker 1: content or first party content. The First Amendment applies equally
[20:47] Speaker 1: in that circumstance. As a result, to the extent that
[20:51] Speaker 1: social media defendants are being held legally liable for their
[20:55] Speaker 1: editorial decisions, that sounds like a problem, and that sounds
[20:58] Speaker 1: like the kind of thing that an impels court will
[21:00] Speaker 1: pay attention to.
[21:01] Speaker 3: It seems like the allegations and the defenses and these
[21:04] Speaker 3: social media trials are pretty much the same. Do you
[21:07] Speaker 3: think that Meta has learned from its losses at trial
[21:10] Speaker 3: and it may change its tactics here?
[21:14] Speaker 1: Meta seems impervious to the feedback that it has been
[21:18] Speaker 1: getting for a very long time about the concerns that
[21:22] Speaker 1: people have with its decision making. It seems to be
[21:25] Speaker 1: making the same basic mistakes over and over again, both
[21:29] Speaker 1: in terms of how it treats its users and also
[21:32] Speaker 1: how it's been approaching the legal risk that it faces.
[21:36] Speaker 1: So I don't think Meta is likely to learn any
[21:40] Speaker 1: lesson from any particular development. The most likely way that
[21:44] Speaker 1: Meta would change its tune is when the investors start
[21:47] Speaker 1: putting pressure on it. Meta isn't delivering the kind of
[21:50] Speaker 1: equity returns that its investors respect that will catch their attention.
[21:55] Speaker 1: I think everything else is unlikely to change who they are.
[21:59] Speaker 3: A settlement is always a possibility, and Bloomberg Intelligence estimates
[22:05] Speaker 3: that a settlement would most likely land in the low
[22:09] Speaker 3: single digit billions, perhaps somewhere between four and seven billion.
[22:14] Speaker 3: Considering that Meta settle with the FTC for five billion,
[22:19] Speaker 3: and Amazon settle with the FTC for two point five billion.
[22:24] Speaker 3: What do you think?
[22:25] Speaker 1: To be honest, I think if Meta thought it could
[22:28] Speaker 1: settle this case for seven million dollars and avoid all
[22:31] Speaker 1: future liability, it'd probably write that check happily. But I'm
[22:34] Speaker 1: guessing that both the state ags and the other plaintiffs
[22:37] Speaker 1: inclaring individual plaintiffs have much higher numbers.
[22:40] Speaker 5: In mind.
[22:41] Speaker 1: Remember though, in the Bellwether trial, I believe that the
[22:43] Speaker 1: one plaintiff in the first bell Weather asked for one
[22:47] Speaker 1: hundred million dollars.
[22:49] Speaker 3: She ended up with not that much, though the verdict
[22:52] Speaker 3: was six million dollars.
[22:53] Speaker 1: Right, So going back to the evaluation, you know how
[22:56] Speaker 1: much is each case worth? And I will note that
[22:59] Speaker 1: if there there are three thousand victims who are in
[23:03] Speaker 1: either the state or federal cossolidated cases, if the number
[23:07] Speaker 1: two thousand, which might be low, overstated, but work with me.
[23:10] Speaker 1: If the number is three thousand victims and each was
[23:13] Speaker 1: worth six million dollars, which is the number we got
[23:16] Speaker 1: from the first bell Wodrow, that's actually closer to twenty
[23:18] Speaker 1: billion dollars. That's just for the individual victims, not the
[23:21] Speaker 1: state AGS, not the Native American tribes. Single digit billion
[23:26] Speaker 1: number is probably quite low if the parties are going
[23:29] Speaker 1: to settle, But I don't think that they're likely to settle.
[23:32] Speaker 1: And there's two reasons why I'm guessing social media defendants
[23:35] Speaker 1: are hopefully they can knock out big chunks of the
[23:37] Speaker 1: case on appeal. And also, a settlement would need to
[23:40] Speaker 1: be global in nature. It would have to deal with
[23:43] Speaker 1: all victims who might have a claim, and there's not
[23:47] Speaker 1: a clear path by which the social media defendants can
[23:51] Speaker 1: put all tential victims into a single settlement, and without
[23:56] Speaker 1: a mechanism to do that, I think settlement is actually quite.
[23:59] Speaker 3: Remote if there's no settlement. Opening statements are expected to
[24:03] Speaker 3: begin on Monday. Thanks so much, Eric. That's Professor Eric
[24:08] Speaker 3: Goleman of Santa Clara University Law School. Coming up next
[24:12] Speaker 3: on the Bloomberg Law Show. Is the NFL violating antitrust
[24:16] Speaker 3: law by making deals with multiple streaming services. I'm June
[24:21] Speaker 3: Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. Gone are the days
[24:25] Speaker 3: when football fans could easily follow their teams on a
[24:29] Speaker 3: handful of broadcast and cable channels without buying special subscriptions.
[24:35] Speaker 3: Now that the NFL has signed deals with multiple streaming services,
[24:39] Speaker 3: Fans have to try to navigate a bewildering schedule and
[24:43] Speaker 3: pay a steep cause to subscribe to several streaming services
[24:47] Speaker 3: in addition to a traditional cable or satellite bundle. During
[24:52] Speaker 3: a Judiciary subcommittee hearing in June, here's how Republican Congressman
[24:56] Speaker 3: Jim Jordan described the challenge for a Green Bay Packers
[25:00] Speaker 3: fan who lives in Dallas, Texas and wants to watch
[25:04] Speaker 3: his favorite team.
[25:05] Speaker 6: For the twenty twenty six season, the Packers are scheduled
[25:08] Speaker 6: to play eight games on Fox, two games on Amazon
[25:10] Speaker 6: Prime Video, two games on Netflix, two games on NBC,
[25:13] Speaker 6: one game on ESPN, one game on CBS, and one
[25:16] Speaker 6: on schedule game that is left to be determined by
[25:17] Speaker 6: the NFL. The fan will need access to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, NBC,
[25:22] Speaker 6: and ESPN to see the seven game schedule for those services.
[25:25] Speaker 6: For the nine games schedule for Fox and CBS, the
[25:27] Speaker 6: fan will likely need Fox and CBS because some of
[25:29] Speaker 6: the games will be on broadcast television in Dallas. The
[25:32] Speaker 6: fan will also likely need Sunday ticket just to watch
[25:34] Speaker 6: some subset of the nine Fox CBS games, because the
[25:37] Speaker 6: fan will not know which games will and will not
[25:39] Speaker 6: be on broadcast until the NFL and relevant networks release
[25:42] Speaker 6: the broadcast maps the week of the games. That's what
[25:45] Speaker 6: they got to navigate.
[25:47] Speaker 3: Sports leagues like the NFL can only negotiate these media
[25:51] Speaker 3: deals collectively on behalf of their teams because of an
[25:55] Speaker 3: antitrust loophole created by Congress just for them. But the
[26:00] Speaker 3: Justice Department has opened up an investigation into whether the
[26:04] Speaker 3: NFL and other leagues are breaking antitrust laws and driving
[26:09] Speaker 3: up costs for consumers. My guest is an expert in
[26:12] Speaker 3: anti trust, Harry First, a professor at NYU Law School. Harry,
[26:17] Speaker 3: some of our Bloomberg reporters looked into this, and so
[26:21] Speaker 3: for a Philadelphia Eagles fan living outside of Pennsylvania to
[26:26] Speaker 3: get all the games the Eagles are in, they would
[26:29] Speaker 3: need Sunday Ticket at three hundred and seventy eight dollars,
[26:33] Speaker 3: YouTube at eighty three dollars, Peacock at thirty three dollars,
[26:38] Speaker 3: Fox Won at twenty dollars, and Prime Video at nine dollars,
[26:43] Speaker 3: for a grand total of five hundred and twenty three dollars.
[26:47] Speaker 3: Yet the NFL claims that eighty seven percent of its
[26:50] Speaker 3: games are primarily shown on free over the air broadcast TV.
[26:56] Speaker 7: I mean, I assume that's true, you know. Yeah, if
[27:00] Speaker 7: you just want to watch the Eagles, I mean, it's
[27:02] Speaker 7: going to be on free over the air television in Philadelphia.
[27:05] Speaker 7: But if you want to watch away games, you know,
[27:07] Speaker 7: if you want to just sit there on a Sunday
[27:09] Speaker 7: and watch every game out of your market, you're gonna
[27:12] Speaker 7: have to pay for it. If you want to watch
[27:14] Speaker 7: every time that the Eagles play in LA, it's not
[27:18] Speaker 7: going to be on Channel ten in Philadelphia. So yes,
[27:22] Speaker 7: if you fly to LA, it'll be there for free too,
[27:25] Speaker 7: but not exactly free. So I don't know the number.
[27:29] Speaker 7: It's one of those numbers that will convince no one. Obviously,
[27:32] Speaker 7: a lot of people are buying this Sunday ticket to
[27:35] Speaker 7: watch out of market football games because they just love
[27:38] Speaker 7: sitting there watching their team wherever they are on other
[27:41] Speaker 7: teams that you can't see on over the AIRTV.
[27:44] Speaker 3: The investigation is reportedly focused on this antitrust loophole in
[27:48] Speaker 3: the Sports Broadcasting Act that allows the NFL and other
[27:53] Speaker 3: leagues to negotiate media deals collectively on behalf of their teams.
[27:59] Speaker 3: That's the same loophole that the Congressional subcommittee was looking
[28:03] Speaker 3: into in June.
[28:04] Speaker 7: So the lawyer in me doesn't like to call them loopholes,
[28:08] Speaker 7: likes to call them exemptions, you know, in nineteen sixty one. Yes,
[28:13] Speaker 7: it's interesting to try to think about it, and I'm
[28:15] Speaker 7: not certain I fully understand why the over there broadcasters
[28:20] Speaker 7: went along with this because they were I think relatively
[28:24] Speaker 7: more powerful than the NFL in nineteen sixty one, which was,
[28:28] Speaker 7: you know, not the juggernaut we know today. So they
[28:32] Speaker 7: allowed the NFL to pool all their TV rights free
[28:37] Speaker 7: of any anti trust issues. The law was in some
[28:40] Speaker 7: ways less settled then, and maybe it was a little
[28:44] Speaker 7: less clear, but they really would have had some problems,
[28:46] Speaker 7: and there had been litigation, and I think everyone thought
[28:49] Speaker 7: it was in their best interest to negotiate with a
[28:52] Speaker 7: single source have this brand NFL Football, which then the
[28:57] Speaker 7: TV networks could sell to advertise because you know, that's
[29:01] Speaker 7: that's third game. So in that sense, it was a
[29:03] Speaker 7: good deal for those two powerful sides, you know, who
[29:08] Speaker 7: then got this through Congress. I doubt that the fans
[29:11] Speaker 7: showed up for legislative fearings, and you know, in the end,
[29:15] Speaker 7: the fans didn't pay directly because those are over the
[29:19] Speaker 7: air quote unquote free broadcasts, but someone picks up the
[29:23] Speaker 7: tab for the advertising, so consumers do pay.
[29:27] Speaker 3: You had the congressional hearing in June, and of course
[29:30] Speaker 3: politicians on both sides questioned whether the deals now violate
[29:35] Speaker 3: that law. Do you think they violate that law?
[29:38] Speaker 7: Well, in a technical sense, the question is whether the
[29:42] Speaker 7: exemption applies to some of the current deals. So if
[29:47] Speaker 7: it's a deal that involves broadcasting rights where the broadcast
[29:52] Speaker 7: is paid for by sponsors, you know there was advertisers supported,
[29:56] Speaker 7: then that comes within the Sports Broadcasting Act. But the
[30:00] Speaker 7: current deals that the NFL's negotiating are with you know,
[30:04] Speaker 7: platforms are with streaming platforms, pretty hard to see how
[30:08] Speaker 7: they're within the wording of the exemption from the Sports
[30:14] Speaker 7: Broadcasting Act. So the Sports Broadcasting Act wouldn't give the
[30:18] Speaker 7: NFL an exemption. They'd have to go straight under the
[30:21] Speaker 7: any trust laws and then the questions whether it highlights
[30:24] Speaker 7: the any trust laws. And they got pretty much socked
[30:27] Speaker 7: in the Sunday ticket litigation with a pretty clear bonding
[30:32] Speaker 7: from a jury. So the pulling of rights apparently keeps
[30:36] Speaker 7: some of the teams from negotiating separately to sell their
[30:40] Speaker 7: broadcasting rights to you know, maybe other streaming platforms, or
[30:45] Speaker 7: put them on YouTube where you know you would just
[30:47] Speaker 7: if you didn't want to get a whole package, all
[30:50] Speaker 7: you wanted to do was follow the Eagles. You would
[30:53] Speaker 7: want to get a package just of Eagles games. But
[30:56] Speaker 7: that can't happen now. So they would be in for
[31:00] Speaker 7: some litigation if they don't fall within that exemption.
[31:03] Speaker 3: And why did the judge toss out that almost five
[31:07] Speaker 3: billion dollar jury verdict against the NFL in the Sunday
[31:11] Speaker 3: Ticket class action lawsuit?
[31:14] Speaker 7: So there are two answers to this. The first answer
[31:17] Speaker 7: that I often would give in class was it's the zeros.
[31:21] Speaker 3: I get that.
[31:22] Speaker 7: Now that's not a legal answer, but this was probably
[31:25] Speaker 7: the largest plane of verdict, certainly an anti trust maybe
[31:29] Speaker 7: in any plane of verdict. Four point seven billion dollars
[31:33] Speaker 7: before trebling is a lot of money. Now, that can
[31:37] Speaker 7: be a reason for knocking down the amount, but that's
[31:42] Speaker 7: not what the judge did. He disqualified two of their
[31:46] Speaker 7: experts on damages that he had actually qualified at the trial.
[31:51] Speaker 7: So it seems a little like, well, let me find
[31:54] Speaker 7: a problem with this trial. And interestingly, he did not
[31:58] Speaker 7: find a problem with liability in itself. It was on
[32:02] Speaker 7: the damages I think. So that case has sort of
[32:04] Speaker 7: been sitting before the Court of Appeals now for a
[32:07] Speaker 7: while waiting for decision.
[32:10] Speaker 3: Yes, the oral arguments in the Sunday ticket case. We're
[32:13] Speaker 3: back in March before a panel of the Ninth Circuit,
[32:17] Speaker 3: so we should get that decision soon. Now. The Justice
[32:21] Speaker 3: Department is launching an investigation into whether the NFL and
[32:26] Speaker 3: other sports leagues are breaking the antitrust laws with their
[32:30] Speaker 3: negotiations with the streaming services. Are the issues similar to
[32:35] Speaker 3: the Sunday ticket litigation.
[32:37] Speaker 7: I don't know exactly what negotiations they have in mind.
[32:40] Speaker 7: I mean the Sunday ticket litigation involves an agreement to distribute,
[32:45] Speaker 7: and also they add it with direct TV first and
[32:48] Speaker 7: then with YouTube that if you wanted access to these games,
[32:53] Speaker 7: you would buy it and it would be streamed on YouTube.
[32:56] Speaker 7: Now there are other They're licensing Netflix, Amazon On, They're
[33:00] Speaker 7: licensing a bunch of different platforms. But the problem is
[33:04] Speaker 7: the same without regard to which platform it is. It's
[33:08] Speaker 7: the question of you know, is the NFL a single
[33:12] Speaker 7: entity or are they a group of however many teams
[33:16] Speaker 7: thirty two teams all coming together and agreeing that they're
[33:21] Speaker 7: going to sell their rights jointly, pool their rights because
[33:24] Speaker 7: each one has the right, you know, the legal right
[33:27] Speaker 7: the copyright to the games that they're involved with. So
[33:31] Speaker 7: they're pooling all their rights to make a single product
[33:35] Speaker 7: called NFL Football. So that coming together is an agreement,
[33:39] Speaker 7: and that section one of the Sherman Act. Now, whether
[33:42] Speaker 7: that's lawful or not something that the NFL presumably would fight.
[33:46] Speaker 7: These sports leagues haven't had a great track record in saying, gee,
[33:50] Speaker 7: we're coming together for your good. So I don't know.
[33:53] Speaker 7: Now when you say the Justice Department is investigating, the
[33:57] Speaker 7: careful approach that I would suggest is there are reports
[34:01] Speaker 7: that the Justice Department is investigating, we really don't know
[34:05] Speaker 7: what they're doing. And frankly, I'm not sure you know.
[34:08] Speaker 7: In looking back at the anti trust history here, I
[34:11] Speaker 7: don't think the government has necessarily spent its prosecutorial resources
[34:17] Speaker 7: worrying about competition in professional sports. They've usually left it
[34:23] Speaker 7: to the people with money in the game, the owners, fans, consumers,
[34:28] Speaker 7: things like that. So why are then interested in this?
[34:33] Speaker 7: Why do you think, Well, you know the answer the
[34:37] Speaker 7: staff report you just mentioned, the House any trust Subcommittee
[34:41] Speaker 7: staff report starts out with the quote from the president,
[34:44] Speaker 7: there's something very sad when they take football away from many,
[34:49] Speaker 7: many people. He said that in May.
[34:52] Speaker 3: Harry, even with President Trump's interest, this Justice Department has
[34:57] Speaker 3: not been, shall we say, strong on antie trust enforcement.
[35:01] Speaker 3: They walked away from the Ticketmaster Live Nation trial and
[35:05] Speaker 3: left it to the States, who then won. They also
[35:08] Speaker 3: walked away from the Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery merger, leaving
[35:13] Speaker 3: it to the States to sue. Do you think they
[35:16] Speaker 3: would really sue the NFL.
[35:18] Speaker 7: I don't really see any government group doing anything here
[35:22] Speaker 7: because they're just going to rub some important economic interests
[35:26] Speaker 7: the wrong way. I mean, honest, see Congress doing anything.
[35:29] Speaker 7: The House report didn't say, oh my god, we have
[35:33] Speaker 7: to repeal this statute, or oh my god, we have
[35:36] Speaker 7: to amend it, or oh my god, we have to
[35:38] Speaker 7: do something, and they said, oh my god, we've got
[35:41] Speaker 7: to stand here and look, we've got to keep watch
[35:43] Speaker 7: and thank you very much for going on recess. I mean,
[35:46] Speaker 7: I don't know. Maybe they've got a big investigation going,
[35:50] Speaker 7: but there are a lot of big mergers going on
[35:53] Speaker 7: in the economy, and although private parties get involved in
[35:56] Speaker 7: those occasionally that's really fall into the government to do
[36:01] Speaker 7: something about not that they're doing a lot about them,
[36:03] Speaker 7: but at least they've got to review them, and they're involved.
[36:06] Speaker 7: So they have important or stuff that demands government attention,
[36:11] Speaker 7: maybe more than this because we have private enforcement, and
[36:15] Speaker 7: the private enforcement's been.
[36:17] Speaker 3: At work, right, so there might be a private antitrust suit.
[36:21] Speaker 7: Indeed, I mean that's you know, that's what Sunday Ticket
[36:24] Speaker 7: litigation was, and you know, would not be surprising if
[36:28] Speaker 7: there were.
[36:29] Speaker 3: Especially considering that stunning jury award in the Sunday Ticket litigation.
[36:35] Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Harry. That's Professor Harry First of NYU
[36:39] Speaker 3: Law School. And that's it for this edition of The
[36:41] Speaker 3: Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest
[36:44] Speaker 3: legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find
[36:47] Speaker 3: them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg
[36:52] Speaker 3: dot com, slash podcast Slash Law, and remember to tune
[36:56] Speaker 3: into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm
[36:59] Speaker 3: Walls Greek Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to
[37:03] Speaker 3: Bloomberg
[37:08] Speaker 5: M

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