AT&T withdraws T-Mobile merger application
Though the move comes just days after the FCC ordered a hearing on the merger, AT&T claims its withdrawal came pre-emptively.
“Yesterday AT&T withdrew its application with the FCC for approval of our merger with T-Mobile. We took the required actions, announced this publicly, and filed securities disclosures accordingly. We believe the record will show that we withdrew our merger application before the FCC voted on the chairman’s proposed hearing designation order,” said AT&T senior executive, VP and general counsel Wayne Watts in a statement on Friday (November 25).
The FCC does not have to approve the withdrawal, said Watts.
“We have every right to withdraw our merger from the FCC, and the FCC has no right to stop us. Any suggestion the agency might do otherwise would be an abuse of procedure which we would immediately challenge in court,” he said.
AT&T had been pursuing the deal to purchase T-Mobile for eight months, but was already facing an antitrust suit from the U.S. Department of Justice. A hearing and subsequent probe by the FCC would only have added more challenges to the deal’s success.
In order to break off the deal, AT&T would have to pay Deutsche Telekom $4 billion, including $1 billion worth of wireless spectrum.
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