The Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit on Nov. 2 to block a merger of two major book publishing companies. Penguin Random House, the largest book publisher in the world, is seeking to acquire its competitor, Simon & Schuster, for $2.18 billion. The sale was announced in November 2020. The DOJ said the acquisition would enable Penguin Random House “to exert outsized influence over which books are published in the United States and how much authors are paid for their work.” The DOJ seeks to “ensure fair competition in the U.S. publishing industry” and its complaint (pdf), filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, reflects the DOJ’s “commitment to pursuing economic opportunity and fairness through antitrust enforcement,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Five publishers control the publishing industry in the United States. The other three publishers are HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan. “If the world’s …