Justice Department Comes Out Against T-Mobile And Sprint Merger

The proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint now faces a major hurdle. The Antitrust Division at the United States Justice Department has come out against the deal. It has recommended that the law enforcement agency block the merger between these two major U.S. carriers. This, according to a news report.

CNBC reports that the antitrust division staff of the Justice Department has recommended that a lawsuit be filed to block the pending $26 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. A final decision is yet to be made, though. They seem to fear that T-Mobile will have less of an incentive to aggressive cut prices and improve service after the merger goes through in order to compete with its rivals Verizon and AT&T.

It will be up to the political appointees at the department to make that call, which are led by antitrust division chief Makan Delrahim. Two sources mentioned in the report say that the Justice Department is likely to make a final decision on the matter in a month.

Even though staff at the Justice Department appear to be against the merger, the Federal Communications Commission said earlier this week that it had reached an agreement in principle to allow the merger after it was agreed that Sprint would sell its Boost Mobile prepaid brand.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Sprint, T-Mobile