Ten state attorneys general, led by Letitia James of New York and Xavier Becerra of California, filed a lawsuit yesterday (Tuesday 11 June), with a view to derailing T-Mobile US’s USD26 billion acquisition of mobile rival Sprint Corp, the New York attorney general’s office said in a statement. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Manhattan, the statement noted. The attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin also joined the complaint.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, in April 2018 T-Mobile and Sprint entered into a definitive agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction. They seek to create a company which will be 41.7% owned by T-Mobile’s parent Deutsche Telekom (DT, which would have overall control) and 27.4% owned by Sprint parent SoftBank Group Corp, with the remaining 30.9% in free float. Despite winning over Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai, the long-running merger continues to face opposition from the Department of Justice (DoJ), which believes that the agreed concessions are not sufficient to resolve its concerns.