https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200129/07375243822/sinclair-pays-tribune-60-million-to-settle-lawsuit-over-dodgy-merger.shtml > Last year when Sinclair attempted acquire Tribune Broadcasting for a cool $3.9 billion, you might recall the company was accused of some highly unethical behavior in order to get the deal done. Despite the FCC doing its best to neuter most media consolidation protections to help move the deal forward, the union would have still resulted in the merged company violating media ownership limits and dominating local broadcasting in a huge number of new markets. > To get around those limits, Sinclair allegedly got, uh, creative. Consumer groups accused Sinclair of trying to offload several of its companies to Sinclair-owned shell companies to pretend the deal would remain under the government's ownership cap. The company also tried something similar in trying to offload some stations to friends and other partner companies at highly discounted rates, allowing it to technically not "own" -- but still control -- those stations.