Will The Sprint T-Mobile Merger Pass Regulatory Muster?

Although there is a view that the regulatory environment for large mergers may have softened with the current government, a deal could still face considerable hurdles. The stance of the current administration on telecommunication mergers has been somewhat unpredictable. For instance, the Justice Department sued AT&T November 2017 to block its $85 billion take-over of media behemoth Time Warner. There is a possibility that the DoJ could remain averse to a deal this time around as well. In 2017, Reuters reported that “career staff” at the Department of Justice, who carry out a bulk of the probe into a merger, would likely recommend that it be rejected as they believe that a merger could hurt customers.