Bloomberg Reports DoJ Lawyers Likely to View Sprint-T-Mobile Merger Skeptically (Oct 11, 2017)
With all the renewed talk of a Sprint-T-Mobile merger in recent months, one big assumption has been that the Trump administration would view it much more favorably than the Obama administration did, and that it wouldn’t therefore be shot down this time as it was last time. However, Bloomberg reports today that the staff lawyers at the Department of Justice are mostly the same as under the previous administration, even if the leadership and presidency has changed in the interim, and that the lawyers themselves are likely to reach much the same conclusion today as then. In other words, if the deal is to be approved by the DoJ, it will likely happen over the objections and recommendations of the staff rather than with their support. That’s certainly not a deal-killer – SoftBank Chairman Masa Son has cozied up to the Trump administration on issues like job creation, and would presumably curry some favor on that basis. But this does make it more challenging for the deal to go through than many might have assumed. Last time around, the deal was called off before it even formally went through regulatory approval on the basis that it wouldn’t succeed, so I would guess that Son and others would be feeling out the regulatory authorities quietly behind the scenes again this time around to ensure smoother passage.
via Bloomberg
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