The Justice Department is suing to block a $2.2 billion book publishing deal that would have reshaped the industry, saying consolidation would hurt authors and, ultimately, readers.

German media giant Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House, already the largest American publisher, wants to buy New York-based Simon & Schuster, whose authors include Stephen King, Hillary Clinton and John Irving, from TV and film company ViacomCBS.

The Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday in the first major antitrust action by the Biden administration. The department said the deal would give Penguin Random House “outsized influence” over which books are published in the U.S. and how much authors are paid.

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The new antitrust suit signals that the Justice Department “is willing to use its full authority to combat the wave of consolidation swallowing the American economy,” said Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, an organization that advocates for government action against business concentration.

“This case also reflects how Amazon’s dominance looms as a predatory presence for most firms in the economy,” Miller said in a statement. “The CEOs of the number one and number three publishers openly sought to use this merger to become an ‘exceptional partner’ to Amazon.”