John Malone, who is the chairman of Liberty Media Corporation, has announced that he is resigning from his director emeritus role at Charter Communications.
In a statement given to Cablemax, he mentioned that he is concerned about the Clayton Act inquiries, a 1914 antitrust law, which also led to the resignations of Steven A. Miron and Steven O. Newhouse at Warner Bros. Discovery earlier this month..
In his resignation statement, Malone also said, “I still have a lot of investments in Charter through Liberty Broadband, and I trust Charter’s leadership team and business strategy.”
Malone has been a director emeritus at Charter since 2018, when he retired as Charter’s full-time director. He still holds his seat on the board of his holding company Liberty Media, where he is chairman, as well as on the WBD board.
The former WBD executives resigned after the Department of Justice informed them that it was investigating whether their actions violated a provision that stops directors and officers from serving on the boards of competitors at the same time.
When they both decided to step down, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Kades of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division called the move “a win for consumers.”
Kades also mentioned that “Congress was worried that competitors who shared directors would compete less vigorously to provide better services and lower prices. We will continue to vigorously enforce the antitrust laws when necessary to address overreach by corporations and their designated agents.”
In March 2023, Malone and certain Charter Communications board members agreed to pay $87.5 million to resolve a seven-year-old investor lawsuit accusing the American billionaire businessman of being unfairly compensated in Charter’s 2015 acquisition of Time Warner Cable. However, this settlement did not involve any admission of wrongdoing.
Cablefax was the first to report Malone's resignation.
