All Sprint wants to do is have a fair playing field when it comes to the mobile industry. The company feels that if AT&T is allowed to pay almost $40 billion for T-Mobile and become the largest wireless carrier in the United States, the wireless industry will be hurting in more ways than one. While we all sit around and wait for the DOJ, FCC and others to decide the sale is good or not, Sprint has decided to file a lawsuit to stop the sale. Today, a judge finally announced that the lawsuit from Sprint is good and is allowing it to go through.
Both AT&T and T-Mobile have tried to get the lawsuit tossed out, but US District Judge Elle Huvelle agreed to allow the lawsuit claiming the deal would affect the market for wireless devices in a negative way. The merger started out as a great plan for AT&T, but over the last 3 or 4 months the possible outcome has started to look much worse. AT&T and T-Mobile both have to deal with the government breathing down their necks and now will have to answer to the lawsuit from Sprint and C Spire Wireless.
According to the 44-page ruling the judge is going to allow C Spire, aka Cellular South, to pursue claims that the deal would affect overall roaming services. In the report, judge Huvelle said, “Where private plaintiffs have successfully pleaded antitrust injury, the fact that they are defendants’ competitors is no bar”. Not all of the claims were honored in the lawsuit though. The judge will not allow Sprint to sue based on information that the deal would hurt the market for wireless airwaves needed or that the deal would hurt the market for development of the Sprint network.
Another claim from Sprint was that the deal would hurt the market for backhaul services, which are links between the core network and more remote locations, but the judge did not see sufficient evidence of that happening. AT&T said that with the majority of the claims tossed out, the rest of the minor claims are “without merit”. In the past, companies that are not fond of a merger like this would take their story public and not file a lawsuit of their own. Typically, anti-trust lawsuits are taken care of by the anti-trust enforcers and are used to protect consumers, not competitors.
