analysis

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 24 (UPI) — Once hailed as the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” Lebanon has undergone an infernal descent into deeply rooted corruption, financial collapse and state failure, suggesting that the country is governed by a unique model of “mini deep states” that have flourished under its sectarian and clientelist system, political and financial analysts said.

Endemic corruption, misgovernance, sectarianism, wars and political disputes have long fueled Lebanon’s multiple crises.

The 2019 financial collapse — described by the World Bank as a “deliberate depression” and the worst globally since 1850 — was the tipping point that revealed the country’s situation to be far worse than anyone had realized.

Six years later, the situation remains almost unchanged. No one has been charged or put on trial and no official has acknowledged responsibility for the crisis or the estimated $110 billion in bank deposits squandered under state mismanagement.

The first serious attempt to address the financial crisis came Friday, when Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government presented a draft law aimed at tackling the financial system’s huge funding gap and enable depositors to gradually regain access to their frozen savings — though probably not in full.

The draft law, yet to be debated and expected to be amended, was quickly met with opposition from the banks and depositors, arguing that its provisions are insufficient or unfair. Crucially, it fails to address corruption as the root cause of the crisis and provides no mechanism for accountability.

However, Lebanon’s problems extend far beyond the recent financial crisis, stemming from a corrupt and inept political elite whose sectarian and clientelist networks consistently put personal gain above the nation’s survival, analysts say.

One of the most striking examples of deliberate systemic failure is the chronic power shortages, which have forced most citizens to rely on private or neighborhood generators — run by what many describe as a “mafia” protected by influential political leaders — since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990. This has created cumulative deficits of about $43 billion.

The same pattern applies to nearly every other sector and extends to the country’s political system, reflecting the reality that all major political forces have blocked meaningful change and prevented reforms for decades.

Despite their political divisions, these forces share common interests, effectively acting as a deep state rather than merely an elite sectarian cartel.

To Mohammad Fheili, a risk strategist and monetary economist, Lebanon is better understood as a system of “multiple, competing and at times cooperating mini-deep states operating within a consociational (power-sharing) confessional framework.”

Rather than a single hidden chain of command, power, Fheili notes, is distributed across overlapping circuits involving security services, the banking and financial sector, senior judges and prosecutors, and top public officials. These networks outlast governments and are bound together by mutual protection.

“Sectarianism is the main channel of organization and veto, but it is not the only engine,” he told UPI. “It provides quotas, patronage pipelines and narratives of legitimacy. However, the driving incentives are often clientelism, rent extraction, protection from prosecution and control of state resources.”

As a result, the same political establishment came to dominate legislation, government and the economy, with decisive influence over appointments, contracts and financial regulation.

Such a “deep state” is not a new phenomenon. Its roots can be traced back to Lebanon’s founding in 1943, when it developed alongside a “rentier economic model,” according to Makram Rabah, a political activist and history professor at the American University of Beirut.

While the civil war saw the rise of militia leaders who later became powerful political figures in peacetime, Rabah said that Syria’s military presence in Lebanon after 1990 introduced “a kind of dual system, in which local actors were allowed to benefit economically as long as Syria controlled foreign policy and security.”

“This is what gave the system its longevity,” he told UPI.

The civil war also normalized militia power, wartime political economy and impunity, Fheili noted, adding that the post-war order “recycled many wartime actors into peacetime governance through a spoils-and-veto arrangement rather than institutional reconstruction.”

A sectarian cartel, he said, then emerged, dividing ministries, contracts and regulatory favors –and transforming political competition into a struggle over access to the state.

The withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005 — just a few months after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut — paved the way for Iran-backed Hezbollah to consolidate its control over the country.

Although the militant group has consistently denied involvement in Lebanon’s entrenched corruption — arguing that its funding from Iran is sufficient — experts contend that it nonetheless benefits from the country’s clientelist system, even operating a shadow parallel economy.

Lebanon’s financial collapse, Rabah argued, revealed Hezbollah as both a beneficiary of and a participant in the system, as many of its institutions faltered during the meltdown. Moreover, the perception that it relied solely on Iranian funding and was free from corruption has proven to be “a fallacy.”

With each sect — Muslims and Christians alike — protecting its own corrupt members, it became impossible to hold anyone accountable or bring them to justice. A few exceptions were recorded, but only because those arrested had lost the political protection of their patrons.

“There are many ministers and officials who are extremely corrupt, but no one dares to act against them, as they are protected by their sect and political leaders,” said Mohammad Chamseddine, policy research specialist at the Information International research and consultancy firm.

Although the Lebanese government adopted a new, anti-corruption law in 2020 and began work on a national anti-corruption strategy, he said these efforts failed to yield any results due to the prevailing sectarianism.

“Such an interaction of religion, politics and money is everywhere and consolidates corruption,” Chamseddine told UPI. “Only a real revolution — when people storm the houses and palaces of the corrupt and put them in jail — can change this.”

Lebanon’s losses from corruption and the deep state, accumulating since the 1990s, are difficult to estimate, exceeding tens of billions of U.S. dollars, according to Chamseddine.

However, dismantling the country’s “mini deep states” and eliminating corruption is possible –even if only partially — but it would require a long process of gradual, progressive steps, starting with an independent judiciary, the analysts said.

Would the disarming of Hezbollah, which was significantly weakened by Israel during last year’s war, be the starting point?

“It may open tactical space, but only if reforms target the entire ecosystem, not just Hezbollah or the banks,” Fheili said.

When he was plucked by fate and his friend Pete Wilson from the political minor leagues to be a U.S. senator in January, 1991, John Seymour vowed to go back to Washington, shake up the congressional Establishment, make his mark for California and win election on his own.

After 22 months, the 54-year-old former Anaheim mayor is still struggling to forge a senatorial image of himself and his vision for California in the minds of voters.

His 59-year-old Democratic opponent, Dianne Feinstein, has coasted into the final week of the campaign with a commanding 54%-to-40% lead among likely voters surveyed by the Los Angeles Times Poll. Political experts credit her with building on her strong image from the 1990 contest for governor and conducting an error-free campaign that more often resembled that of a secure incumbent than the challenger.

The race for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Wilson had shaped up as a classic California contest featuring a scrappy appointed incumbent and a strong challenger known to many voters as the tough officeholder “forged from tragedy” when she was thrust into the leadership of San Francisco by the shooting death of Mayor George Moscone in 1978.

Some experts thought it would be a close rerun of Feinstein’s 1990 battle with Wilson, which she lost by only 3.5%.

But so far the race hasn’t gotten that close.

Feinstein has demonstrated the immense benefits of having run an earlier campaign for major statewide office: Building an image among voters in a state of 30 million residents and the financial base needed to field such a campaign.

In analyzing the contest Tuesday, political experts credited Feinstein with running a consummate professional effort, if not a spectacular one. But even more emphatically, they characterized the Republican campaign as a missed opportunity that failed to follow a basic rule of politics: A candidate must define himself or herself to the voters before waging a negative campaign on the opponent.

Going into the last week of the campaign, one-fourth of California’s voters still did not know who John Seymour was, according to statewide opinion polls. Even more didn’t know much about him or why they should vote for him.

What’s more, Feinstein has demonstrated a Teflon resistance to attack. When Seymour attacked her, he often appeared strident or petty as Feinstein reacted indignantly and emerged all the stronger.

For 22 months, Seymour has been dogged and tireless, commuting regularly to Washington and campaigning throughout California with the tough can-do talk of a former Marine and a successful Orange County Realtor–the sort of man who’s not worried about the threat of Mexican competition under a free trade agreement because “we’ll kick their butts.”

He hounded Feinstein to hold more debates and pounded her with tough, largely negative television commercials.

His ads attacked her on all the perceived weaknesses of the tough 1990 campaign for governor: Her 1990 campaign’s legal problems, the potential conflict of interest of her banker-husband’s investments and her former position against the death penalty, which changed nearly 20 years ago.

Seymour added the hidden bomb of his opposition research: the fact that the five-member state women’s parole board on which Feinstein served from 1960 to 1966 paroled 21 convicted murderers out of more than 5,000 cases considered. By last week, Seymour even tried to link those 30-year-old decisions to the prospect that a convicted murderer like Robert Alton Harris, who was executed at San Quentin in April, might be set loose.

Essentially, Seymour duplicated the 1990 Wilson campaign playbook, Feinstein media adviser Bill Carrick said.

“But it’s 1992 not 1990,” Carrick said. “And in 1990, we never saw that crime as an issue made much difference. It’s less important in a Senate race.”

While Seymour tried to portray himself as an outsider, Feinstein attacked him as just another incumbent and, going to the heart of his failure to define himself to voters, asked: “How much do you know about Sen. John Seymour?”

Seymour, the ad said, was “a Washington big spender” who also had voted to raise his own pay four times. In fact, he had voted to raise his pay as a state senator, but not in the U.S. Senate, where he denounced the congressional pay raise and refused to accept it.

While Feinstein seemed relatively impervious to his ads, hers seemed to be finding the mark. The Times Poll found that in the last month, the number of respondents who had an unfavorable impression of Seymour had soared to 39%, an increase of 18 points.

“One has to infer they haven’t run a very good campaign,” Times Poll Director John Brennan said.

Veteran California pollster and analyst Mervin Field said: “He was unknown. He got appointed. He is unelected. He hasn’t distinguished himself in the Senate.”

UC Berkeley political science professor Bruce Cain said Seymour has been “invisible” as a senator and suffers “grayness” as a candidate.

Seymour insists he’s closing the gap. And on Tuesday, campaign manager Richard McBride said: “We’re fine, right where we are. Our tracking shows a lot of volatility among voters out there.”

But other polls point to a Feinstein victory Tuesday that would gain her some measure of revenge for her narrow loss of the governorship to Republican Wilson two years ago.

It was that loss that provided Feinstein her Senate opportunity. Before Wilson could take office as governor in January, 1991, he had to resign the Senate seat to which he was reelected for a six-year term in 1988. As governor, Wilson appointed a successor until the next general election. The winner Tuesday will serve the final two years of Wilson’s term and the seat will come up again in 1994 for a regular six-year stint.

Wilson angered GOP conservatives and puzzled nearly everyone else when he turned to Seymour, who had served eight years as a state senator but was not well known statewide. He had lost the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 1990 to a fellow Orange County senator.

Seymour bounded off to Washington, saying that to win the 1992 election, “John Seymour has got to perform and he’s got to make his mark very quickly.”

Seymour’s best opportunity to make a name for himself was to resolve two major California issues that had long simmered in Congress: the California desert wilderness bill and legislation to reform the federal Central Valley water project.

But Seymour presided over the death of the desert bill in 1991 because, Democratic critics contend, of his loyalty to ranching and mining interests.

In 1992, Seymour seized on Central Valley Project reform as his key issue. He bragged about muscling a water bill favorable to California agribusiness through the Senate over the objections of Senate giants like Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Bennett Johnston (D-La.). But Seymour’s measure was ignored in the House and Seymour was shut out of Senate-House conference sessions where the final version of the bill was drafted by others.

Seymour denounced the deal as being unfair to California farmers while he repeatedly misstated the dire effect it would have on California water supplies. With Wilson’s backing, Seymour implored President Bush to veto the measure. A final ignominy for Seymour would be Bush’s signature on the bill just a few days before the election.

Feinstein used her primary to reinforce the positive image and message of change she carried over from the 1990 race. She went after Seymour in the fall as an insider incumbent and capitalized on the “year of the woman,” but also was careful to avoid damaging mistakes.

Cain summed it up: “Dianne Feinstein has a formula which is well suited to California, which is a moderate to conservative Democrat who is pro-choice and pro-environment but also pro-business, for fiscal responsibility and the death penalty.”

“That formula has served her well,” Cain added. “She consolidated that image in 1990 and carried it into this campaign.”

Yemen’s separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) is trying to create facts on the ground with its recent advances in the country’s eastern governorates of Hadramout and al-Mahra.

Its military push this month highlights that Yemen’s conflict – ongoing for more than a decade – cannot be reduced to one simply between the internationally recognised government and the Houthis. Instead, an overlapping map of influence is evident on the ground with de facto authorities competing over security, resources and representation.

At the heart of these changes is the STC, backed by a regional power, which now stands as the most powerful actor in Yemen’s south and parts of its east at a time when the government’s ability to impose unified administration over the whole country is distant and the economy is suffering.

In this context comes what the Yemeni government has said is the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) decision to suspend activities in the country. While the IMF has not publicly commented on the topic, President Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, warned on Sunday that the decision was a “wake-up call” and an early signal of the cost of the STC’s security and military escalation in Hadramout and al-Mahra.

Al-Alimi stressed that Yemen’s economic circumstances – the country is the poorest in the region and has suffered immensely during the war – cannot withstand any new tensions. He added that the security instability in eastern Yemen would immediately affect the distribution of salaries, fuel and services and international donor confidence.

The solution, according to al-Alimi, is for the withdrawal of forces who have arrived in Hadramout and al-Mahra from outside the two governorates, calling it a necessary step to contain tensions and restore a path of trust with the international community.

But that economic warning cannot be understood in isolation from the shift in power in eastern Yemen, where competition for influence has become a direct factor in generating tension that leaves donors wary.

A new balance of power

The STC is clear that its goal is ultimately the secession of the territories in Yemen – its south and east – that formerly made up the country of South Yemen before unification in 1990.

It is opposed to the Houthis, who control Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and much of Yemen’s populous northwest, and the STC’s leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, has a seat on the government’s Presidential Leadership Council, officially as one of its vice chairmen.

The STC and government forces have previously fought, most notably in 2018 and 2019, in Aden and its surrounding governorates.

Its current expansion eastwards, focused on government forces and those affiliated with them, is part of that ongoing division in the anti-Houthi camp but one that redraws the balance of power within it, turning resource-rich Hadramout and al-Mahra into a multiparty arena of competition.

There are three concurrent trends that are emerging as a result: the expansion of STC forces with regional support, a desire by local and tribal forces – independent of the STC – to solidify their presence and the clearly limited tools the government has to confront its rivals.

The result is the further fragmentation of the state on three interconnected levels.

Politically, there is fragmentation within the same anti-Houthi camp with multiple decision-making centres. The government and regional actors are finding it more difficult to unify security and administrative policies, and the idea of a single “chain of command” controlling territory under anti-Houthi control has been eroded.

Geographically, new lines of contact have now been formed. Whereas lines of control were previously between the Houthis and government forces, they are now between Houthi and STC forces as well as grey areas contested by local and tribal forces and multiple military groups.

And then there is fragmentation on the representative level with mounting disputes over who actually speaks for the south and Hadramout and the practical decline of the concept of a single state as a sovereign framework for managing resources and institutions.

In Hadramout and al-Mahra, the fragmentation is particularly sensitive as both governorates include important border crossings with Saudi Arabia and Oman and also have a long coastline with routes tied to trade, smuggling and irregular migration.

Any imbalance here does not remain local; it quickly spills over into the region.

Economy hostage to security

The IMF’s suspension of activities carries not only financial implications but also a political reading that the security and institutional environments no longer provide sufficient conditions for sustaining support programmes.

The Yemeni state relies heavily on its own limited resources and fragile external support, so any disruption in resource areas, ports or supply routes translates into immediate pressure on livelihoods.

The latest military developments increase pressure on the exchange rate and the government’s ability to meet its financial obligations and widen the trust gap between society and the state, prompting non-institutional alternatives based on levies and loyalties.

And it will shrink the room for the government to manoeuvre, meaning the government has to take into account the cost of any escalation because any military move increases an economic bill that it cannot pay and drains what remains of the government’s ability to manage services.

Now that the impression has taken root that Yemen has turned into “islands of influence”, some external actors may be inclined to deal directly with de facto local authorities at the expense of the government, weakening the political centre rather than helping it to strengthen.

That is why the latest developments are so important if not existential to the government and al-Alimi. His call for the withdrawal of outside forces from Hadramout and al-Mahra is part of an attempt to stop the deterioration of trust in Yemen and to present the government once again as capable of controlling the other parties in the anti-Houthi camp if reasonable political and economic conditions are provided.

Houthis gain while rivals stay divided

The Houthis, who overthrew the government in Sanaa in a coup in 2014, have benefitted from the developments in Hadramout and al-Mahra even without being directly involved.

Every struggle for influence in areas outside the group’s control gives it clear gains, including the disintegration of the front opposing it and its rivals being preoccupied by internal conflicts rather than by the Houthis themselves.

In the anti-Houthi camp, the notion of a united front recedes every time a military confrontation between its components takes place, and the discussion shifts from confronting the Houthis to disputes over power and resources within the same camp.

The divisions within the anti-Houthi camp and the regional dimension to them also allow the Houthis to reinforce their narrative that their rivals are working within competing foreign agendas, as opposed to the Houthis, who portray themselves as independent actors able to carry out their own decisions.

Moreover, the recent conflict and its consequences ultimately improve the Houthis’ negotiating position now that the other side is even more fragmented and weak. The Houthis will enter any upcoming settlement from a more cohesive organisational and administrative position, raising the ceiling of their conditions.

The Houthis may have their own economic and social tensions, but divisions among their enemies give them extra time to sustain the war economy and their instruments of control over it and over the people they rule.

Rising risks, domestic and regional

The current course of events in Yemen elevates a number of overlapping risks.

Domestically, there is the possibility of front lines turning into actual borders between adjacent entities, the expansion of security vacuums and declining prospects for producing a unifying social contract.

Regionally, there could be an expansion of the areas considered lawless along the borders with Saudi Arabia and Oman, increasing the risks of smuggling and leading to higher costs for managing border security.

Internationally, the growing need for global powers to communicate with multiple parties in Yemen prolongs the crisis and increases the chances that the conflict is internationalised through competition over ports, resources and shipping routes.

However, the picture painted does not mean there will be a decisive victory for any side and instead makes a mosaic of authorities, all needing external sponsorship, more likely. Inevitably, that will weaken the prospect of establishing a stable state.

A way out?

Lowering tensions by making partial deals on redeployments of forces is not enough. Instead, the path forward needs a broader approach based on three interlinked pillars.

First, the national project needs to be redefined by drafting a vision of the state that guarantees fair partnership for all the regions of Yemen within a viable federal framework and redefines the political centre as a guarantor of rights and services.

Second, security must be based on a model of local forces under a national umbrella. In Hadramout and al-Mahra, this should be done by building professional local forces within a clear national and legal framework with practical arrangements for withdrawing outside forces and ensuring that security decision-making in state institutions is uniform.

Third, an economic deal is necessary to restore trust by concluding a transparent agreement on managing resources in the governorates that produce them, the fair distribution of revenues and the linking of international support to an implementable reform plan with a clear commitment to protecting sovereign facilities under central management.

In the absence of these steps, Yemen will continue towards a gradual model of disintegration from the peripheries in which the most cohesive armed entities advance and contested margins expand.

If that continues, the economy will be the first victim of fragmentation, making conditions even more difficult for millions of Yemenis.

And the governance crisis will eventually turn into a prolonged stability crisis, the repercussions of which will be difficult to contain locally and perhaps even regionally.

Saeed Thabit is the Al Jazeera Media Network’s bureau chief for Yemen

Satellite images show ongoing demolitions behind the ‘yellow line’; experts warn actions likely violate Geneva Convention.

Satellite images reviewed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency show that the Israeli military has continued to demolish buildings in areas of Gaza it has occupied since a ceasefire with Hamas went into effect.

The Palestinian group has decried such demolitions as a violation of the ceasefire deal, which went into force on October 10. Legal experts and United Nations officials have said throughout the war that the destruction of civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera, but officials have previously said such actions have been done within the ceasefire’s framework and were in response to active threats.

Israel has remained in control of about 58 percent of Gaza since the ceasefire began, withdrawing behind the so-called “yellow line” that divides coastal Gaza from its border regions.

Satellite images showed the latest demolitions took place between November 5 and December 13, with most concentrated in the Shujayea and the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City.

The images also appeared to show demolitions in the southern city of Rafah as well as the apparent destruction of agricultural facilities east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

In an email to Al Jazeera, Adil Haque, a professor of law and armed conflict at Rutgers Law School, explained that under the Fourth Geneva Convention, “any destruction by an Occupying Power of private property is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations”.

“The exception is extremely narrow. The destruction must be absolutely necessary, not merely convenient or advantageous,” Haque said. “And the absolute necessity must arise from military operations, that is, from combat or direct preparations for combat.”

“With a general ceasefire in place, and only a few sporadic exchanges of fire, it is not plausible that such significant destruction of civilian property has been rendered absolutely necessary by military operations,” he added.

Violations continue

The Sanad analysis further found that Israel appears to have created a new advanced military outpost in Tal al-Za’atar in northern Gaza, with new tents and equipment added between November 5 and December 13.

Before its creation, there were 39 active Israeli military points inside the enclave, according to Sanad.

Israeli military operations have devastated Gaza throughout the war, with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reporting last month that 282,000 housing units have been destroyed in the enclave, where about 1.5 million Palestinians remain displaced.

About 93 percent of schools have been destroyed or damaged throughout the war, with 63 percent of hospitals remaining out of commission as of December 9.

A UN Human Rights Council independent commission in September repeatedly cited attacks on civilian infrastructure, particularly medical facilities, in finding that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry has said that 391 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in the enclave since the ceasefire went into effect.

All told, at least 70,663 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed at least 1,139 people.

Last week, Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badram decried a reported statement by Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir in which the military official described the “yellow line” as the “new borderline” with Gaza.

At the time, Badran said that Hamas viewed Israeli demolitions in the area as a continuation of military operations.

What Happened

Netflix has announced a proposed $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, aiming to absorb HBO Max and consolidate a subscriber base of 428 million. To justify the massive scale, Netflix argues it needs this merger to compete effectively with YouTube, which Nielsen ranks as America’s most-watched TV platform. However, antitrust experts and former regulators are deeply skeptical, noting that YouTube’s model built on user-generated content, influencers, and advertising, differs fundamentally from Netflix’s premium, scripted, subscription-based ecosystem. The Department of Justice and global regulators are expected to scrutinize the deal closely, particularly Netflix’s claim that it competes in the same market as YouTube.

Why It Matters

This isn’t just another media merger, it’s a defining test for how regulators view competition in the digital entertainment era. If accepted, Netflix’s “YouTube as rival” argument could set a precedent allowing giant streaming platforms to consolidate further by defining their market extremely broadly. The deal would give Netflix unprecedented control over both premium original content and major legacy film/TV libraries, potentially allowing it to dominate pricing and distribution in the paid streaming sector. How regulators respond will signal whether antitrust enforcement can keep pace with the evolving, platform-driven media landscape.

Critical Analysis

Netflix’s YouTube argument faces several critical weaknesses. First, content and business models are fundamentally different: Netflix invests billions in exclusive, scripted originals and operates on a subscription-first model, while YouTube monetizes user-generated videos through ads and creator partnerships. Second, historical precedent works against Netflix: regulators have repeatedly rejected broad market definitions in favor of specific “sub-markets” (e.g., “premium natural supermarkets” in the Whole Foods case), and internal company documents often reveal how firms really view their competition.

Third, new merger review rules will force Netflix to turn over internal strategic documents early, which could undermine its public claims if those materials don’t mention YouTube as a primary competitor. Finally, Netflix’s claim that bundling will lower prices for consumers is viewed with extreme skepticism by regulators, who often see such promises as unenforceable and worry more about price hikes for non-bundled users.

Conclusion

Netflix faces an uphill battle to convince regulators that swallowing Warner Bros Discovery is necessary to compete with YouTube. The DOJ is likely to define the relevant market narrowly, around premium, subscription-based streaming, where the combined entity would hold overwhelming share and pricing power. Unless Netflix can produce compelling internal evidence that it genuinely views YouTube as a direct competitor for the same viewer time and dollars, this deal is at high risk of being challenged or blocked. The outcome will not only shape the future of streaming consolidation but also test the boundaries of modern antitrust logic in a platform-dominated world.

This briefing is based on information from Reuters.