Agency to Challenge Sale of Deluxe Labs

The U.S. Justice Dept. said it will challenge, under federal antitrust law, 20th Century Fox Film Corp.’s proposed sale of Deluxe Laboratories to the British entertainment firm Rank Organization.

The department said the sale of Deluxe, a film lab, “would tend substantially to lessen competition” among labs serving Hollywood movie studios. It said the Deluxe acquisition would give Rank roughly half of the $140-million U.S. market for producing prints of major feature films.