Nothing is Normal About the T-Mobile-Sprint Merger Review

Last week, ten state attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint in a federal district court in New York. While it might not seem unusual for state officials tasked with enforcing antitrust and consumer protection laws to seek to halt the 4-to-3 horizontal merger of two of the nation’s mobile wireless companies, that the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice did not join the lawsuit was extraordinary. Also, in April, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he was supporting the merger subject to a handful of behavioral conditions, almost identical in nature to those strongly opposed by Pai in previous years. What made this announcement even more suspicious was the fact that there was no concurrent announcement by the Justice Department that it, too, was approving the transaction. For the FCC to “go it alone” was unprecedented. 

Why did Chairman Pai get so far ahead of his colleague Makan Delrahim, who leads the DOJ's Antitrust Division? Many observers believe it was to put political pressure on Delrahim to approve the deal, against the reported wishes of the career staff of the Antitrust Division. In addition, Fox Business has reported that senior White House officials have also voiced their support for the merger, though it is unclear whether they have spoken directly to Delrahim. While the states and the FCC moving forward without the Justice Department was exceptional, political pressure from the White House and others in the Administration is not. The merger of T-Mobile and Sprint threatens to significantly lessen competition. Delrahim and the Justice Department should join the states’ effort to block it.