Deals
T-Mobile’s Late-Game Filing Could Be a Bad Sign for Sprint Deal
- FCC pauses review after T-Mobile tells of in-home broadband
- Details coming months into process said not a sign of strength
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
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The 63-page by T-Mobile US Inc. this week was meant to demonstrate that its purchase of rival Sprint Corp. is in the public interest. Yet the filing’s appearance -- which prompted U.S. regulators to pause their review -- had some observers wondering if it’s a sign of trouble for the $26.5 billion deal.
“At this stage of the game, filing something elaborate like this is not a sign of strength,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a media lawyer at Georgetown University Law Center. “It’s not the kind of thing you would expect at an advanced stage unless they saw that they were getting pushback that they were trying to address.”