• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Anti-trust issues have taken center stage as part of a legal proceeding involving publishers. 

A federal appeals court has halted a joint operating agreement between Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review Journal. 

The ruling by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals dissolves a 2005 Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) between the two, a deal signed under the Newspaper Preservation Act, which grants failing newspaper an exemption from anti-trust laws.  

According to the court, the Review Journal sought to terminate the 2005 agreement in 2019. The Sun sued, claiming that breaking the JOA would violate anti-trust laws. 

A district court had decided that the 2005 JOA remained binding, but the 9^th Circuit has effectively tossed that ruling. 

It has remanded the case for “further proceedings consistent with this agreement.” 

The 2005 JOA, a rewrite of one signed in 1989, had not been approved by an attorney general, as required. This apparently was acceptable to the district court, but not to the appeals court. 

The three-judge 9^th circuit panel writes that “because it did not receive the required "prior written consent of the Attorney General," the 2005 JOA is unlawful and unenforceable. 

“Under the terms of the 2005 JOA, the Sun would cease publication as an afternoon paper and would instead be distributed as a six-to-ten-page freestanding insert to the Review-Journal,” the court observed. 

However, disputes arose and the Sun filed suit against the Review Journal and two officers, Shelden Adelson and his son-in-law, and others. 

The Sun was in serious difficulty when it signed the first JOA having “lost money every year since 1981,” the judge writes. 

The appeals court opinion was written by Circuit Judge Daniel P. Collins. The panel includes Lawrence VanDyke, and Salvador Mendoza, Jr., Circuit Judges.