By Diane Bartz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a preview of arguments in the upcoming trial over AT&T's deal to buy Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX), government lawyers said on Tuesday it will raise prices for consumers while AT&T's lawyer argued the company has no reason to withhold programming from competitors as feared.
Opening arguments are expected Wednesday before Judge Richard Leon, who will decide if the Justice Department was correct to seek to block the $85 billion (£60.6 billion) deal on the grounds that it would hurt cable television rivals and, by extension, their consumers.
The government estimates that the deal would hike an average subscriber's monthly cable bill by 45 cents. It filed its lawsuit in November.
At a hearing to discuss how to handle sensitive business information in the trial, AT&T lawyer Daniel Petrocelli argued that it would be "catastrophic" for Time Warner to withhold programming in hopes that disgruntled customers would drop their cable company and sign up with AT&T's DirecTV, as the government has alleged they could do.
He argued that Time Warner would lose millions of dollars a month in fees and advertising, and that the few subscribers that DirecTV could gain would not make up the difference.
Petrocelli also pointed to a voluntary commitment that AT&T made to distributors to refrain from withholding programming if there is an impasse in licensing talks. Twenty of its 1,000 distributors signed on.
Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath said the government's first two witnesses would discuss their companies' negotiations in buying Time Warner content. He did not identify the witnesses.
"What drives these customers to have concerns is that their negotiating partner (Time Warner) is being acquired by someone they compete with," said Conrath.
An official from Google's YouTube will testify on the importance of Time Warner's Turner family of stations, which includes CNN, to DirecTV's rivals, a Justice Department lawyer said previously.
AT&T's Petrocelli also noted the role of big technology companies such as Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in transforming how people watch television and, more to the point, winning away advertisers from the pay TV companies.
"They are running away with the industry," said Petrocelli, noting the internet companies' skill at targeting ads to the right consumer. "Cable bills can't go up any more because people won't pay any more."
Conrath indicated that an expert on advertising, whom he did not identify, would testify on this issue.
AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson and Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes are also expected to testify during the trial, which the judge has said would last six to eight weeks.
Looming over the trial is the question of whether U.S. President Donald Trump, who criticized the deal on the campaign trail and again as president, may have influenced the Justice Department's decision to oppose the transaction.
AT&T lawyers have said the Time Warner deal may have been singled out for enforcement, citing Trump's statements that the deal was bad for consumers and the country.