How the DOJ’s Face-Off With AT&T Could Alter American Business

Next week, a federal judge will begin trying an antitrust case that has broad ramifications for media, technology and other industries, and could affect the government’s powers to deter large-scale corporate consolidation

WASHINGTON—The government accuses the company’s chief executive of behaving like the disingenuous Captain Renault in the film “Casablanca.” The company likens the government’s case to a shaved Persian cat, “pale and thin.”

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., next week will hear a case that may settle one of the biggest antitrust issues of modern times.

The...