Judge Puts T-Mobile Merger Trial on Fast Track
December 09 2019 - 12:43PM
Dow Jones News
By Drew FitzGerald
A federal judge told lawyers fighting over T-Mobile US Inc.'s
more than $26 billion bid for Sprint Corp. to skip their customary
opening arguments so they could start questioning witnesses, a sign
he is seeking a speedy trial.
As the case began Monday, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero
asked both sides to trim their list of witnesses to avoid beating
him "over the head" with testimony. The bench trial is scheduled to
carry into Christmas week but could last longer.
"What value do you see in opening statements in these
circumstances?" Judge Marrero asked one of the attorneys
representing T-Mobile.
A group of 14 attorneys general, led by New York and California,
sued earlier this year to stop the wireless deal, which would
combine the country's third- and fourth-largest carriers by
subscribers.
Federal antitrust and telecommunications officials approved the
deal earlier this year, saying the merger's shortcomings were
addressed through concessions the officials required from T-Mobile
and Sprint. Legal experts say it is unprecedented for the states to
reject such a settlement and sue to block a merger of this size and
national scope without the support or involvement of federal
authorities.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia decided to continue
their litigation despite the Justice Department settlement, which
required that Sprint divest some assets to Dish Network Corp. to
help build its fledgling wireless unit.
Some states later dropped out of the lawsuit and joined the
Justice Department, though the core group of officials leading the
lawsuit remained unmoved. They also recruited a few more states
that hadn't initially joined the litigation.
California Deputy Attorney General Paula Blizzard said the
solution the federal government devised didn't fix the problem and
called Dish a struggling satellite-television company that lacks
the wireless-industry experience to replace Sprint's position as a
competitive force.
"We have yet to be shown how going from four competitors to
three competitors would be good for consumers," California Attorney
General Xavier Becerra said in a call with reporters before the
trial.
T-Mobile and Sprint announced their merger proposal in April
2018 after several months of stop-and-start talks. T-Mobile is
controlled by Deutsche Telekom AG while Sprint is mostly owned by
SoftBank Group Corp of Japan. The companies scrapped an earlier
effort to join forces in 2014 after the Obama administration
signaled its opposition to the deal.
Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Timotheus Höttges was among the
first executives the states said they will call. The states' first
witness, Sprint marketing chief Roger Solé, testified to the
company's efforts to lure subscribers away from rivals, including
T-Mobile.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 09, 2019 12:28 ET (17:28 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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