Cingular Denies Its Own Report Of $1.4 Billion Deal With NextWave

from the clerical-errors dept

This one is just bizarre. Over on the Techdirt Wireless site we'd been following the back and forth rumors about Cingular buying spectrum from back-on-its-feet NextWave for a while. Then, late last week came down the official word that the deal was done, and Cingular was $1.4 billion poorer, but a bit wealthier in spectrum. Now, Derek has discovered that this $1.4 billion deal was all a clerical error. Say what? Cingular is claiming that no deal has been struck, and it was just an over-anxious PR person who put out an incorrect press release about a $1.4 billion deal. How do you make a clerical error about something like that? Shouldn't there be a few levels of approval? And, for something that big, wouldn't you think people would, at least, make sure the deal was done before the release went anywhere near the door? Update: And just hours after we're told it's a clerical error, comes yet another press release claiming that, this time, the deal is real. Okay. If you say so... but we're still checking to see if this "clerical error" gets corrected too...
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