Originally Posted by
burlax
This is patently incorrect. Granting a party's request for more time to prepare does not mean any further 'favors' during the trial. Gotta love FT legal analysts.
Correct. The judge in most cases has all the latitude in the world to grant a party more time to prepare if the nature of the request is reasonable. Granting that request is not a "favor" in any legal sense, it's done in the best interests of justice. For the most part, parties requesting more time are given it unless the request is a pure stall tactic without any legal merit. I'm not an antitrust lawyer, so I can't speak to these particular instances, but the parties' desire to get a merger done doesn't bear on the judge any more than the DOJ's desire to have more time to prepare. Neither is a favor to anyone.