US: States sue to stop $26.5B Sprint-T-Mobile deal

A group of state attorneys general led by New York and California are filing a lawsuit to block T-Mobile’s US$26.5 billion bid for Sprint, citing consumer harm.

According to Bloomberg, the state AGs say the merger would hurt competition and drive up prices for cell phone service.

“When it comes to corporate power, bigger isn’t always better,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “This is exactly the sort of consumer-harming, job-killing mega-merger our antitrust laws were designed to prevent.”

The states’ challenge is a major setback to T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s plan to combine and take on industry leaders AT&T and Verizon Communications. Last month, the carriers cleared a key hurdle when they won support for their deal from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

The all-Democratic attorneys general are taking the rare step of suing to block the US$26.5 billion deal while the Justice Department is still reviewing the merger. State enforcers have the authority to go to court to block a merger even if federal officials at the Justice Department and the FCC approve it. Sprint shares dropped 6.4% at 12:15 p.m. in New York trading on Tuesday, June 11. T-Mobile fell 1.7%.