California Regulators Say T-Mobile Lied To Gain Sprint Merger Approval

from the synergies dept

To gain regulatory approval for its $26 billion merger with Sprint, T-Mobile made numerous promises. One was that the deal would immediately create jobs (there've been 5,000 layoffs so far). Another was that the company would work closely with Dish Network to help them build a fourth wireless network that would replace Sprint, theoretically "fixing" the reduction in competition the deal created. As predicted, that plan isn't working out well either.

Dish and T-Mobile have been fighting like cats and dogs since the deal was finalized. Instead of helping Dish Network grow, T-Mobile has been poaching Dish customers with promotions specifically targeting Dish. T-Mobile also promised to keep its older 3G, CDMA network operational for Dish to use until 2023 (giving it time to build out its own 5G network), but Dish has been accusing T-Mobile of turning that network off on January 1, 2022, far earlier than originally promised. Dish argues that millions of its Boost Mobile branded wireless subscribers could lose access to service in the new year.

This week California regulators sided with Dish and effectively accused T-Mobile of lying to gain merger approval:

"T-Mobile's false and misleading statements under oath indicated, among other things, that T-Mobile would make its CDMA network "available to Boost customers until they were migrated to Dish Network Corporation's LTE or 5G services" and that Dish would have up to three years to complete the migration, the ruling said. The CPUC can impose penalties against T-Mobile of up to $100,000 for each offense."

In short Dish says T-Mobile simply isn't living up to its merger commitments. In turn, a T-Mobile blog post effectively accuses Dish is just making everything up, and insists Dish is simply too cheap to give its wireless users discounted 4G and 5G phones to avoid problems when T-Mobile's 3G network shuts down. California regulators, including Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer and a CPUC commissioner, appear inclined to believe Dish Network based on their review of T-Mobile's pre-merger promises:

"Their ruling said there is "a reasonable basis to conclude that T-Mobile... misrepresented material facts and misled the commission" with statements under oath. The ruling said that when the CPUC allowed the merger, it "relied on the specific false statements, omissions, and/or misleading assurances T-Mobile gave regarding its use of [Sprint's] PCS spectrum and its repeated references to a three-year customer migration period without a degraded experience... it appears that these false statements, omissions and/or misleading assurances and the related time references were intended to induce the commission to approve the merger."

Again, simply blocking this deal and finding some other way to prop up Sprint (without eliminating a direct competitor) was always the simpler, cleaner, option. Instead, the Trump DOJ and FCC constructed this elaborate and likely doomed alternative which (ironically for a party with a purportedly "hands off" and "government never works" mindset), involves having government try to nanny a cumbersome arrangement to fruition for the better part of a decade. With Dish consistently losing both wireless and TV subscribers, it's not clear Dish will even remain viable enough for that to work.

Dish is a company with no experience in wireless, with a history of being cheap and difficult to work with, that has to not only build out a world class 5G network in a few years, but has to make a network so popular with consumers it successfully leeches subscribers from AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. And it has to do it without financially imploding as it continues to hemorrhage wireless and TV subscribers. And US regulators, not exactly the model of consistent oversight, would need to hold all companies involved meaningfully accountable should they miss build-out metrics.

I still tend to think the entire deal was performative theater providing flimsy justification to approval a deal experts made very clear would reduce competition, raise prices, and harm jobs. It was pushed by folks whose only real interest was reducing competition so the remaining three players could inevitably jack up prices. And while I do think Dish is making a good show of it (because they have to), I still tend to think this could end with Dish selling its trove of valuable spectrum (once deal restrictions end), making tens of billions, then throwing a few peanuts at any flimsy regulatory penalties on their way to the exit.

Filed Under: antitrust, california, competition, doj, fcc, jobs, layoffs, lies, review
Companies: dish, sprint, t-mobile

Dish, Cornerstone Of The Trump DOJ's 'Fix' For The T-Mobile Merger, Continues To Bleed Wireless, TV Subscribers

from the this-is-going-well dept

If you recall, economists repeatedly warned the $26 billion Sprint/T-Mobile merger would kill jobs, harm competition, and ultimately raise prices for consumers. To "fix" the problem, the Trump DOJ and FCC concocted an elaborate and cumbersome plan to create a replacement fourth wireless carrier out of Dish Network, despite the company's lack of experience in the sector and history of empty promises. So far none of this is going particularly well, with 5,000 and counting lost jobs, Dish and T-Mobile clearly unable to get along, and Dish... the cornerstone of the entire plan... continuing to bleed both TV and wireless subscribers.

Of all the pay TV providers dealing with "cord cutting," Dish has indisputably been hit the hardest, losing another 67,000 pay TV subscribers last quarter. It technically added 65,000 Sling TV streaming video subscribers, but it wasn't enough to offset the 132,000 customers that cancelled Dish's traditional satellite TV service. With absolutely no plans to build new satellites and users shifting increasingly to streaming, Dish knows satellite TV is a dead end.

That's where the company's wireless business is supposed to come in.

As part of the DOJ/FCC deal, Dish obtained billions in spectrum and the Boost prepaid mobile brand from Sprint. The idea is that Dish is supposed to operate a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) as it builds out its own, full 5G wireless network.

But, there too, things aren't going particularly well. Dish lost 201,000 Boost subscribers in the last quarter. And while it added 200,000 subscribers last March by buying a small wireless company named Republic Wireless, a research note by Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett indicates the overall trajectory isn't a great one:

"Their Q2 loss of 201K wireless subscribers (about 2.3% of their Q1-ending subscriber base, or almost exactly the size of Republic Wireless) means that they have now organically lost 9.7% of their subscribers in their first year of ownership."

The Trump DOJ and FCC "fix" for the Sprint T-Mobile merger was always a bit dodgy. It was hand-crafted by a DOJ "antitrust enforcer" in Makan Delrahim who was completely disinterested in data showing the deal should be blocked. Delrahim was far more interested in working as a glorified life coach for Sprint, T-Mobile, and Dish executives looking for regulatory approval. The deal itself always felt like flimsy theatrical cover to justify rubber stamping the Sprint T-Mobile deal, instead of a real fix for any genuine problems.

Now the whole mess is in the lap of the Biden DOJ, who this week sent a letter to Dish urging Dish and T-Mobile to start getting along. The DOJ is particularly concerned about the fact that T-Mobile's shutdown of its 3G CDMA network could leave millions of Boost mobile customers stranded January 1. Dish says the shutdown was earlier than promised, violating merger guidelines. T-Mobile says Dish is simply being too cheap to give Boost users discounted 4G or 5G phones. Either way, the DOJ isn't impressed:

"After careful consideration of the Parties’ submissions and arguments, the Division is left with grave concerns about the potential for a nationwide CDMA shutdown to leave a substantial proportion of Boost’s customers without service. While it cannot reach any conclusions today regarding events that have not yet transpired, the Division believes that the Final Judgment may be violated by one or both Parties if the network shutdown strands a substantial proportion of Boost customers, particularly if either or both Parties have not taken all appropriate steps to affirmatively alleviate any such harms in the leadup to implementing the network shutdown. If that situation manifests—and we sincerely hope that it does not—the Division may act pursuant to its authority under the Final Judgment or seek relief from the Court against one or both Defendants."

But again, the real problem is this deal was always a stupid, unworkable mess from the get go. Numerous experts noted so, and they were all ignored. Largely because the deal provided useful if flimsy cover for merger approval, which is all that really mattered.

To make any of this work Dish, a company with no real experience in the sector it's trying to disrupt, needs to remain financially viable as it attempts to meet guidelines attached to its deal with the DOJ and FCC (providing wireless to 70% of the country by 2025). But Dish is a company with a long history of empty promises in wireless (just ask T-Mobile circa 2018), run by a guy (Charlie Ergen) people traditionally say is hard to work both for and with, purportedly building a new wireless network whose details remain hard to come by.

l still tend to think it seems entirely possible Dish strings feckless U.S. regulators along for years then, once the six year restriction on selling its spectrum expires, cashes out, hoovers up billions of dollars, then throws a relative pittance at any remaining legal or regulatory penalties. The U.S. wireless sector gets even more consolidated, and all the folks who pushed this dodgy fix for a bad deal (that should have been rejected outright) simply forget any of this ever happened.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, cord cutting, doj, fcc, tv, wireless
Companies: dish, sprint, t-mobile

The Dish 'Fix' For The T-Mobile Merger Is Looking More And More Like A Ridiculous Mess

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Remember when the FCC rubber stamped the Sprint T-Mobile merger without looking at the facts? Remember when a long line of economists and experts noted the merger would likely erode competition, raise rates, and kill jobs -- and both U.S. regulators and the court system completely ignored them? And remember when the FCC and DOJ both cobbled together a "fix" to this problem by trying to throw some spectrum at Dish Network, a proposal we noted was likely to fail?

Well guess what. Not only has the merger resulted in 5,000 layoffs and counting (something T-Mobile repeatedly promised regulators would never happen), the Dish "fix" proposed by the DOJ and FCC is looking more and more like a hot mess. Dish has increasingly been complaining that before the ink on the agreement was even dry, T-Mobile was behaving a lot like AT&T and Verizon. The issue is that T-Mobile is shuttering its older and slower CDMA network, which Dish hoped to lean on as it got its full, broader 5G network up and running:

"This is the same company that goes on Twitter and talks about dumb and dumber and how they’re for everybody, they love everybody and they’re for the consumer. They went to the Public Utility Commission in California under oath and said that it would be three years before they turned CDMA off. They forgot about that. Once they got their merger done, they look like every other big company,” Ergen said.

“They’ve become the Grinch,” he said. As the Dr. Seuss story goes, the Grinch had a tiny heart and stole all the kids’ toys. In Ergen’s analogy, T-Mobile is sort of stealing phones out of consumers’ hands since they won’t work anymore.

Sounds like the strong foundation for a lasting relationship, yeah?

Ideally, the agreement offloaded T-Mobile's Boost prepaid brand and some spectrum to Dish Network in the hopes it would cobble together a replacement fourth wireless carrier over a period of seven years. But there were always ample problems with that idea that suggested it was more regulatory theater than practical solution for the market problems created by the merger.

One, even by T-Mobile's admission Dish has a long history of hoarding wireless spectrum and making empty promises in wireless. Two, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile had absolutely every incentive in the world to prevent the creation of a viable, fourth wireless competitor. Three, regulators who take great pride in being "hands off" were never going to have the competency and willingness to nanny such a convoluted deal toward completion.

Dish continues to bleed satellite TV subscribers at an alarming rate, so it surely wants a shift to wireless to work out. But it's just not clear that the company has the competence to pull it off, especially when the consolation prize for failing is likely just a wrist slap by the FCC and a huge cash pay out should it sell off its mammoth spectrum hoard. Meanwhile, as we've seen in Canada, Ireland, and Germany, the reduction of competitors from four to three will inevitably result in higher mobile data prices for U.S. consumers, something the remaining three U.S. carriers will lobby for heavily to ensure never changes.

Filed Under: charlier ergen, competition, merger, spectrum, wireless
Companies: dish, sprint, t-mobile

The Trump DOJ/FCC 'Fix' For The Crappy T-Mobile Merger Isn't Looking So Hot

from the regulatory-theater dept

Economists repeatedly warned that the biggest downside of the $26 billion Sprint T-Mobile merger was the fact that the deal would dramatically reduce overall competition in the U.S. wireless industry. Data from around the globe clearly shows that the elimination of one of just four major competitors sooner or later results in layoffs and higher prices due to less competition. It's not debatable. Given U.S. consumers already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world, most objective experts recommended that the deal be blocked.

It wasn't. Instead, the Trump FCC rubber stamped the deal before even seeing impact studies. And the Trump DOJ not only ignored the recommendations of its staff, but former Trump DOJ "antitrust" boss Makan Delrahim personally helped guide the deal's approval process via personal phone and email accounts. Both agencies, the vocal chorus of telecom-linked industry allies, and many media outlets all behaved as if all of this was perfectly legitimate and not grotesquely corrupt.

At the heart of the DOJ's approval was a flimsy proposal that involved giving Dish Network some T-Mobile spectrum in the hopes that, over seven years, they'd be able to build out a replacement fourth carrier. As we noted at the time, there was very little chance this plan was ever going to work. In part because the remaining three wireless carriers (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T) have every incentive to fight against a major fourth wireless competitor emerging from this mess. But also because Dish has a long history of spectrum hoarding and empty promises in wireless (just ask T-Mobile circa 2019 or so).

And there have been several hints that we're already stumbling along this doomed trajectory. Including the 6,000 layoffs (so far) that the merging companies promised wouldn't happen if regulators approved the deal.

Last week, for example, Dish Network complained to the FCC that T-Mobile wasn't being particularly cooperative on a number of fronts, including their supposed spectrum and network sharing arrangements. To help build this "new" fourth wireless network, T-Mobile gave prepaid mobile brand Boost Mobile to Dish. But Dish is annoyed that the Sprint CDMA network, which is currently in use by many of these customers, is being shut down prematurely, making it harder for Dish to get an operational foothold:

"Dish's letter to the FCC addresses a range of concerns, but the largest issue relates to the shutdown of the CDMA network that had previously been used by Sprint and is still used by the majority of Dish's 9 million Boost Mobile subscribers...Dish had expected that T-Mobile would eventually look to shut down that network in three to five years, according to people familiar with Dish's thinking. But Sprint said late last year that it would look to shut it down far earlier, on Jan. 1, 2022.

But Dish's letter also generally complains about something else. Namely, that post-merger, T-Mobile is acting a lot more like AT&T and Verizon (which it used to mock), and a lot less like the consumer-centric company that disrupted the market in the first place:

"In the letter, Dish also accuses T-Mobile of flip-flopping on other spectrum issues. Where T-Mobile previously pushed for policies encouraging smaller competitors, Dish says T-Mobile is now adopting the same tactics as AT&T and Verizon.

"During its earlier life as the 'Un-Carrier,' T-Mobile championed policies that promoted competition, diverse spectrum ownership, and efficient spectrum use. How quickly things change," Dish says in its letter. "Now, T- Mobile opposes measures that would help new entrants and smaller providers compete."

This should surprise absolutely nobody, including Dish. When you reduce overall competition via consolidation, the remaining competitors will always take full advantage. People like to debate this stuff, but it's like debating whether water will be influenced by gravity. It (layoffs, higher prices, worse service) happened in numerous other countries (Germany, Canada, Ireland) that saw a 4-3 sector consolidation, and, as US regulators increasingly rubber stamp mindless merger mania in wireless, it's going to happen here. And absolutely nobody responsible for it will take ownership when rates skyrocket a few years from now.

Filed Under: ajit pai, competition, doj, fcc, makan delrahim, mergers, mobile
Companies: dish network, sprint, t-mobile

T-Mobile Promised Major Job Growth Post Sprint Merger. SEC Filings Show The Exact Opposite Happened

from the Charlie-Brown-and-Lucy-Football dept

When T-Mobile was selling its $26 billion Sprint merger to regulators, it told anybody who'd listen that the deal would create a parade of new jobs. In a 2019 blog post that still hasn't been deleted (amateur move, guys), ex-T-Mobile CEO John Legere didn't mince words in his predictions:

"So, let me be really clear on this increasingly important topic. This merger is all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the New T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter. That’s not just a promise. That’s not just a commitment. It’s a fact."

"...These combined efforts will create nearly 5,600 new American customer care jobs by 2021."

2021 is here, and a recent SEC filing shows that the company has actually lost about 5,000 jobs in a little under a year and a half. That number could potentially be even higher. As noted last April, T-Mobile quickly set about immediately shuttering its Metro prepaid division (a decision that had nothing to do with COVID), resulting in an estimated 6,000 layoffs (something T-Mobile said wouldn't happen). Last June, the company fired hundreds of additional Sprint employees during a conference call that lasted all of six minutes.

There's likely more where that came from, as the company is still operating dual headquarters in both the Pacific Northwest and Overland Park, Kansas. In most mergers like this, the acquiring company tries to keep things the same for about a year to keep folks calm before the hatchets are unveiled.

Of course, this is all something that consumer groups, antitrust experts, unions, and even Wall Street stock jocks predicted. Most of those folks predicted that, even though it would take time, the deal would eliminate anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 jobs. That's in addition to their complaints that the deal effectively reduced US wireless competition by 25% via 4-3 carrier consolidation, something that historically always, sooner or later, results in higher prices for consumers (see: Canada, Ireland, Germany).

Granted in his original blog post, Legere made fun of those critics and insisted they were simply making shit up:

"I guess if the real numbers don’t tell the story you want, you can just make up new ones? It’s actually offensive."

Yes, accurate predictions are so offensive. Granted John Legere, who successfully built T-Mobile from an also-ran into a major competitor (thanks in part to regulators blocking AT&T's 2011 merger with T-Mobile), was quick to leave the company shortly after the deal, offloading his Central Park West Penthouse to Giorgio Armani for $17.5 million (how many employee jobs is that?). And as Light Reading notes, T-Mobile's revenues continue to soar as it continues job cuts it promised wouldn't happen:

"In 2015, T-Mobile was making about $650,000 per employee. Last year, it generated almost $912,000. For workers at the company, that is not a source of comfort."

Granted this happens absolutely every time there's a major telecom merger. Companies throw out bullshit job growth claims, knowing full well such consolidation inevitably will result in massive job cuts a year or two later as redundant positions are eliminated. The press hypes the false merger "synergy" claims, then (usually) can't be bothered to follow up with reports highlighting how the promises were empty. It's a massive ouroboros of dysfunction, and no matter how many times we live through the exact same experience (AT&T's countless mergers, Verizon's countless mergers, Comcast's repeated mergers), America has a severe allergy to learning absolutely anything from experience.

Mindless consolidation and "growth for growth's sake" hurts employees, markets, and consumers. Full stop. Regulators could have forced Sprint to find another suitor, preferably one that didn't result in a loss of overall competitors (Dish, Comcast, Charter, Google, Amazon). Instead we signed off on another massive deal, based on a parade of false promises. Then, in two or three years when US wireless prices (already some of the highest in the developed world) are even higher, everybody will stand around with a dumb look on their faces wondering how exactly we got this point. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Filed Under: competition, hiring, jobs, john legere, lies, merger, mobile service
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

The DOJ/FCC 'Fix' For The T-Mobile Merger Is Looking More And More Like Theater

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Economists repeatedly warned that the biggest downside of the $26 billion Sprint T-Mobile merger was the fact that the deal would dramatically reduce overall competition in the U.S. wireless space by eliminating Sprint. Data from around the globe clearly shows that the elimination of one of just four major competitors sooner or later results in layoffs and higher prices due to less competition. It's not debatable. Given U.S. consumers already pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world, most objective experts recommended that the deal be blocked.

It wasn't. Instead, the Trump FCC rubber stamped the deal before even seeing impact studies. And the DOJ not only ignored the recommendations of its staff, but former Trump DOJ "antitrust" boss Makan Delrahim personally helped guide the deal's approval process via personal phone and email accounts. Both agencies, and the vocal chorus of telecom-linked industry allies, all behaved as if all of this was perfectly legitimate and not grotesquely corrupt.

At the heart of the DOJ's approval was a flimsy proposal that involved giving Dish Network some T-Mobile spectrum in the hopes that, over seven years, they'd be able to build out a replacement fourth carrier. As we noted at the time there was very little chance this plan was ever going to work. And there's been several hints that we're already stumbling along this doomed trajectory.

One, Dish and its former CEO Charlie Ergen have a long history of empty promises in wireless. He'd been accused (including by T-Mobile previously) of simply hoarding valuable spectrum and stringing along feckless, captured regulators for years with an eye on cashing out once the spectrum's value had appreciated. Two, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all heavily incentivized to make sure this proposal never got off the ground. Three, federal regulators are generally afraid to stand up to industry on a single issue of substance, and aren't likely to engage in the kind of hard-nosed nannying required to usher Dish's plan from pipe dream to major network.

Not too surprisingly, it doesn't sound like the relationship between Dish and T-Mobile is going particularly well as the company bleeds wireless subscribers (it lost 363,000 last quarter alone). A cornerstone of getting Dish up and running as a viable replacement fourth carrier involved the company leaning heavily on T-Mobile's existing 3G network. But that network is being shuttered as of the beginning of next year, Dish said in a filing:

"These required measures would cause a significant disruption to our Retail Wireless subscriber base which could result in, among other things, a significant increase in our churn rate,” Dish stated in the filing. “Additionally, we would expect to incur substantial costs to implement these measures, and we may be unable to effectively implement them, such as the procurement of an adequate number of replacement devices in a timely fashion. As a result, there can be no assurance that these measures would be successful in reducing or controlling subscriber churn."

It's likely that Dish will continue to hemorrhage TV and wireless subscribers while it strings gullible regulators along for another year or two. But it's unlikely a major fourth network ever gets fully built. Again, the remaining three players (AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile) have immense control over federal and state regulators, and absolutely every incentive under the sun to ensure this replacement competition never materializes. And Dish is heavily incentivized to string regulators along until it simply offloads its valuable spectrum right before an Ergen retirement. Of course the folks involved in concocting this plan likely knew this all along, and will simply hide that intention by blaming everything but themselves (COVID will prove a particularly handy culprit).

Predicting this isn't magic. International and domestic history suggests it's what inevitably happens in the face of monopolization, consolidation, and regulators with zero real interest in holding politically powerful companies accountable on any level whatsoever. There's a lot of endless talk about a love of "competition and innovation" in telecom, but when push comes to shove, that's the very last thing the sector (and the politicians and regulators paid to love them) actually want.

Filed Under: antitrust theater, competition, doj, fcc, fix, merger
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

T-Mobile Merger Approval Violated Every Last One Of the DOJ's Updated 'Antitrust Principles'

from the do-what-I-say,-not-what-I-do dept

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice issued a new, "modernized" merger remedies manual that's supposed to dictate agency behavior as it ponders approving, denying, or applying conditions to major U.S mergers. Superficially, many of the changes outlined in the document make perfect sense. For example, the new breakdown dictates that any merger remedies (including blocking deals outright) should do most of the things you'd expect, such as preserving competition:

Remedies must preserve competition.

Remedies should not create ongoing government regulation of the market.

Temporary relief should not be used to remedy persistent competitive harm.

The remedy should preserve competition, not protect competitors.

The risk of a failed remedy should fall on the merging parties, not on consumers.

The remedy must be enforceable.

In a statement, DOJ antitrust boss Makan Delrahim crowed about how the new guidelines would result in more consistent, transparent antitrust review:

"The modernized Merger Remedies Manual reflects our renewed focus on enforcing obligations in consent decrees and reaffirms the Division’s commitment to effective structural relief,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “It will provide greater transparency and predictability regarding the Division’s approach to remedying a proposed merger’s competitive harm."

The "funny" part? It was just a few months ago that the DOJ rubber stamped T-Mobile's $26 billion merger with Sprint, ignoring countless experts who clearly noted that the deal would not only erode competition, but raise rates, lower sector pay, and result in potentially tens of thousands of lost jobs (layoffs that are already well underway). Said approval violated every last DOJ guideline espoused above. Every, last, one.

The DOJ proposed "remedy" for these problems was to try and shovel some spectrum off to Dish Network, which will spend seven years piggybacking on the T-Mobile network in the hopes of someday being a viable replacement fourth carrier for Sprint. It's a proposal that's not likely to work for a long list of reasons, the biggest being that the remaining three carriers (AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile) have a vested interest in ensuring the proposal never works to prevent real price competition. That and the fact that industry-cozy regulators like Ajit Pai, who crow endlessly about the need for "hands off" "oversight" of the telecom sector, will never effectively nanny the proposal to fruition or seriously penalize Dish or T-Mobile for flaking on their promises.

Economists that pointed out the flaws in the deal in court found the DOJ's new guidance a bit entertaining:

Again, blocking the T-Mobile merger was the most sensible, cleanest solution. Just like the last two times this kind of merger was attempted (AT&T/T-Mobile in 2011, Sprint/T-Mobile in 2014). But because T-Mobile kissed enough Trump ass to gain his political support, the Barr DOJ twisted itself into knots to ensure the deal was approved. Not only did the DOJ ignore all objective data showing the deal would clearly be terrible for customers, the market, and employees, Delrahim himself used his personal phone and email accounts to guide T-Mobile to deal approval and actively lobby U.S. regulators and lawmakers.

That is, if you're new to this, the exact opposite of what an "antitrust enforcer" is supposed to do. The T-Mobile merger approval process was glorified cronyism disguised as serious adult policy making, and it placed the entire onus of remedy failure on the backs of sector employees and consumers. It was an embarrassment of corrupt, performative theater, and is important to remember as Bill Barr's DOJ shifts its antitrust attentions to one of the biggest enemies of the GOP and his friends in the telecom sector: Google.

Filed Under: antitrust, antitrust principles, competition, doj
Companies: sprint, t-mobile