T-Mobile’s Late-Game Filing Could Be a Bad Sign for Sprint Deal

The 63-page filing by T-Mobile the week fo March 4 was meant to demonstrate that its purchase of rival Sprint is in the public interest. Yet the filing’s appearance -- which prompted US 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.” “All indications were this would be decided in the next few weeks” but now it appears “they haven’t made the case to the policy makers,” said Gigi Sohn, former aide to previous Federal Communications Commission Tom Wheeler. “They’re still grasping at new theories.” “Are they trying to add a new argument, or bolster an existing argument?” said Blair Levin, a former FCC chief of staff. If T-Mobile is adding a new argument, “it tells us their current arguments may not be working so well.’’