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T-Mobile’s proposed merger with Sprint is “presumptively anticompetitive” according to California attorney general Xavier Becerra and eight other state attorneys general (plus their counterpart in the District of Columbia). On Tuesday, they sued the companies in a New York-based federal court with the goal of blocking the deal. The ten – all democrats – say there would be substantial damage to the market for mobile telecoms services if it goes through…

Sprint and T-Mobile are close competitors.

Even if the federal justice department has an Ajit Pai-like epiphany about T-Mobile’s proposed takeover of Sprint and approves the deal today – not likely – there’s diminishing hope that California’s review of the merger will wrap up before August. And the possibility of a mid-September decision is growing.

There are three structural reasons for the delay. First, the CPUC only has one voting meeting scheduled for July, on the 11th, and there’s a four week gap between the commission’s last August meeting and its first one in September.… More

Despite Monday’s raucous cheerleading from republican members of the Federal Communications Commission, the federal justice department is moving toward blocking T-Mobile’s proposed takeover of Sprint. According to a Reuters report, a staff review has concluded that allowing the two companies to combine, thereby reducing the competitive landscape from four nationwide mobile carriers to three, would do too much damage to the telecoms marketplace…

The U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division staff has recommended the agency block T-Mobile US Inc’s $26 billion acquisition of smaller rival Sprint Corp, according to two sources familiar with the matter…

The final decision on whether to allow two of the four nationwide wireless carriers to merge now lies with political appointees at the department, headed by antitrust division chief Makan Delrahim…

One critic of the deal, Gene Kimmelman, president of Public Knowledge, the nonprofit public interest group, said top brass in the Justice Department’s antitrust division do not generally overrule the staff but they occasionally do.

T-Mobile threw a hail mary pass to Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai yesterday, hoping to move its proposed merger with Sprint over the regulatory approval line. Pai caught it and started running, but could be tackled short of the end zone by the justice department. And the California Public Utilities Commission’s review is still a whole ’nother ball game.

Yesterday morning began with Pai announcing that new promises from T-Mobile about divesting a down market subsidiary – Boost Mobile – and expanding rural wireless coverage led him to “believe that this transaction is in the public interest and intend to recommend to my colleagues that the FCC approve it”.… More