Reuters is reporting that a group of at least 10 State Attorneys General will announce this afternoon that they are preparing a lawsuit to block the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.

The following statement should be attributed to Gigi B. Sohn:

The US Department of Justice should join the states in this lawsuit without delay. Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim should emulate his predecessor William Baxter, who resisted pressure from the Reagan White House, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce and continued prosecuting the lawsuit that resulted in the breakup of AT&T. Delrahim should similarly defy coercion from FCC Chairman Pai and White House staff and move to block this anti-consumer and anticompetitive merger.  

American consumers owe a debt of gratitude to these state AGs for moving to block this merger. The record is clear that it will lead to higher prices and less competition and that the companies’ promises are speculative, not merger-specific and unenforceable. 

It defies belief that the Justice Department would move to block the vertical merger of AT&T and Time Warner but not the 4-3 horizontal merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. AAG Delrahim should immediately join his state colleagues in enforcing the nation’s antitrust laws to protect consumers and competition.

Gigi Sohn is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Foundation Senior Fellow & Public Advocate. She was Counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013-December 2016 and testified against the T-Mobile Sprint merger before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law in March 2019.  Gigi can be reached for comment at the above email or at 202-253-0876.