Feds approve Sirius buyout of XM radio

The Justice Department approved Sirius Satellite Radio‘s $5 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio on Monday, saying the deal was unlikely to hurt competition or consumers.

The deal was approved despite opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry.

The buyout received shareholder approval in November. The companies said the merger will save hundreds of millions of dollars in operating costs — savings that will ultimately benefit customers.

The Justice Department, in a lengthy news release explaining its decision, said the two companies compete not just with each other but also with other forms of radio and entertainment.

“Motorola Inc. on Monday dismissed as an “unnecessary distraction” billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s legal efforts to force it to turn over documents about its executives and its cell phone business.

Icahn plans to use the material in his battle to win four seats on the Schaumburg-based company’s board. Motorola prevailed in a similar proxy battle with Icahn a year ago.

“Over the past 12 months the statements and predictions of Motorola’s management and the board about mobile devices business have too often proven to be wrong,” Icahn said in a statement.

Icahn sued the company for the documents Monday afternoon in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware.

“We demanded these materials for the purposes of enabling us to investigate whether and to what extent the board of directors of Motorola failed in their duties as directors in supervising management and setting policy and direction of Motorola,” he said.

Motorola said it rejected Icahn’s “demand for extensive access to its books and records” earlier this month on the belief that he does not have a credible basis to request such an inspection.

“Online DVD rental leader Netflix Inc. suffered a technology breakdown that knock out its Web site Monday, meaning some DVDs that normally would have gone out that day may not go out until today instead.

Company spokesman Steve Swasey said the trouble blocked access to Netflix’s Web site about 7 a.m. PDT Monday. The site was still down in the afternoon.

Swasey said the problem also hobbled some Netflix distribution centers.

Netflix is based in Los Gatos, Calif., and has 7.5 million subscribers.