When Omnicom announced its takeover of Interpublic Group (IPG) on Dec. 9, its leadership was clear that the deal was pending regulatory approval.
Ten days later, the deal is facing its first probe from Congressional representative Jim Jordan, who is investigating the two holding companies’ ties to two organizations he views as anti-conservative.
On Wednesday, The New York Post reported that House Judiciary Committee chairman Jordan sent letters to the CEOs of Omnicom and IPG, which were founding members of the World Federation of Advertisers and the recently shuttered Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), as part of an antitrust investigation.
In the letters, Jordan and his committee have apparently ordered both holding companies to preserve all documents and contacts with the WFA and GARM and make them available to the committee.
Those letters demand the holding companies to reveal the precautions both have taken to avoid repeating GARM’s “anticompetitive history” and disclose politically partisan “brand safety” initiatives which the two companies may have engaged in.
GARM was a cross-industry initiative established in 2019 by the WFA to help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media and its monetization through advertising. It was shut down after a lawsuit brought against it by X owner Elon Musk, which claimed that GARM members used their influence to inspire brands to boycott X, depriving the platform of ad revenue.
Jordan’s committee requested the answers be sent no later than Jan. 7. Neither Omnicom nor IPG responded to the Post’s requests for comment.
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