monopoly

T-Mobile and Sprint lawyered themselves into a four week delay in California’s regulatory review of their merger deal. Yesterday, a California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge (ALJ) granted a request from staff to force the companies to turn over additional information, and extended the deadline for opening briefs to 26 April 2019, and for rebuttals to 10 May 2019.

Under normal circumstances, it would usually take about a month after that for ALJ Karl Bemesderfer to draft a proposed decision and, absent extraordinary circumstances, state law requires another month for public review and comment before commissioners vote on it.… More

Instead of playing nice with the other kids, T-Mobile is asking for parental intervention as the California Public Utilities Commission reviews its proposed deal to takeover Sprint. Possibly afraid its document dumping and foot dragging tactics are going to backfire and cause even more delays at the CPUC, T-Mobile sent a joint letter to commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen yesterday, telling him don’t tap the brakes, you need to step on the gas dude…

The Commission’s timely review will help ensure that Californians benefit from the broad range of benefits documented in the extensive evidence we have submitted to the Commission.

Getting a fast approval of its proposed takeover of Sprint from federal and state regulators is supposedly T-Mobile’s goal, but it’s not helping itself. Last week, its habit of stonewalling and waiting until the last minute to provide information to regulators reviewing the merger resulted in a three week (minimum) hold at the Federal Communications Commission and a demand from California Public Utilities Commission staff to turn over stacks of documents previously requested. That demand could also lead to a further delay in getting California’s blessing for the deal.… More

A document dump by T-Mobile and Sprint backfired at the California Public Utilities Commission. The administrative law judge managing the commission’s review of the proposed merger of the two companies gave opponents four extra weeks to digest and rebut thousands of pages of material submitted shortly before hearings were held earlier this month.

In his ruling, ALJ Karl Bemesderfer rejected a request by the CPUC’s public advocates office (PAO] for a second round of hearings, but acknowledged that T-Mobile and Sprint did not leave enough time to review all the documents they dropped on the CPUC…

Regardless of whether Joint Applicants’ rebuttal testimony contains new evidence and arguments, the sheer volume of the material together with the complexity of the subject matter has worked a disadvantage to [the PAO] that requires a remedy…

Accordingly, the schedule in this proceeding will be adjusted by moving the date for submission of opening briefs to March 29, 2019 and the date for submission of reply briefs to April 12, 2019.

Californian opponents of T-Mobile’s proposed takeover of Sprint want more hearings and another round of written evidence and rebuttals, before the California Public Utilities Commission moves ahead with approving or rejecting it. Prior to last week’s hearings, the CPUC in-house consumer advocacy unit – the public advocates office (PAO) – asked the administrative law judge hearing the case to, in effect, slow the proceeding down to give them time to review four thousand pages of testimony and evidence that T-Mobile and Sprint dropped on them.… More

T-Mobile and Sprint claim that if they are allowed to merge, then California will see “enormous public-interest benefits”. That’s what the companies told the California Public Utilities Commission in testimony submitted as part of the regulatory review of their proposed deal. That claim is founded in large part on T-Mobile’s description of a glorious 5G future that includes download speeds of up to half a gigabit and coverage that reaches deep into the most rural areas of California.… More

California’s review of the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint goes into high gear on Wednesday. The California Public Utilities Commission will hold a hearing to allow lawyers for the two companies and the organisations that oppose the deal to cross examine experts, and others, who submitted written testimony about it. Three days have been blocked out, although it might not go that long.

The best supported and most coherent opposition to the merger comes from the CPUC’s in-house watchdog unit, the public advocates office (formerly known as the office of ratepayer advocates).… More