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US: States OK AT&T, DirecTV deal

 |  July 24, 2014

AT&T said Wednesday that states have reviewed the company’s proposed acquisition of DirecTV and have not recommended any concessions on the deal.

AT&T CFO John Stephens announced the development while an unnamed source said that Arizona, Louisiana and Hawaii were the states that probed the deal. Those states, the source said, have “unique statutes or commission rules for the transfer.”

Stephens also announced that Brazil antitrust authority CADE has approved of the DirecTV takeover without concessions; according to reports, DirecTV services nearly 18 million customers in Latin America. As part of the deal, AT&T will divest its assets in Mexico’s America Movil.

Despite news of the state approvals, the Federal Communications Commission is still reviewing the merger filing and has not started its informal 180-day review of the transaction. The Department of Justice will also need to sign off on the deal.

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