FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaks at a news conference to discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, in Washington, U.S., April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General William Barr has recused himself from the Justice Department’s deliberations on whether to allow T-Mobile to proceed with its $26 billion acquisition of Sprint, according to a source familiar with the decision.

The department’s Antitrust Division, headed by Makan Delrahim, is reviewing the deal to determine if it will lead to higher prices for consumers or to slower innovation, as critics allege. The Federal Communications Commission also must approve the transaction for it to go forward.

The recusal was first reported by the New York Post.

In a filing with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in December, Barr acknowledged owning a T-Mobile bond valued at $15,001 to $50,000 and two other T-Mobile bonds and a Sprint bond valued at less than $1,001. Those are to be sold within 90 days of his confirmation, which occurred on Feb. 14.

Barr had also recused himself from considering AT&T;’s plan to buy Time Warner, which the government opposed, because of his involvement with those companies. That deal has closed.

T-Mobile announced on Monday that the companies were extending a deadline to complete their deal to July 29. The two are among just four national wireless carriers, trailing Verizon Communications and AT&T.;

Regulators are expected to make a decision on the deal in early June. They will be weighing a potential loss of competition, and subsequently higher prices for consumers, against the prospect of a more powerful No. 3 wireless carrier which can work to build a faster, better 5G next generation wireless network. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - T-Mobile US Inc won U.S. antitrust approval for its $26 billion takeover of rival Sprint Corp, the Justice Department said Friday, clearing a major hurdle to a deal that merges the nation’s third and fourth largest wireless carriers.

The companies have agreed to divest Sprint’s prepaid businesses, including Boost Mobile, to satellite television firm Dish Network Corp to create a fourth U.S. wireless carrier.

The Justice Department indicated the deal would improve competition and the rollout of faster 5G networks by combining weaker players and creating a strong, new No. 4, in Dish, that has unused spectrum, which can be activated. Critics, including some state attorneys general, say competition won’t increase and prices for mobile phone plans will rise.

The deal is a clear success for T-Mobile Chief Executive Officer John Legere, who will be the CEO of the combined company and who pushed back at critics arguing a more concentrated market would lead to higher prices.

“It’s a bit dumbfounding to think that we’ve decided to go and build this network and go through this merger so that we can become the basic, lazy, fat, dumb and arrogant players that we were born to teach how to behave,” he told analysts in a conference call.

Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said the deal would hasten the development of 5G, the next generation of wireless.

Shares of T-Mobile, which is about 63 percent owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, were up 5.3% at $84.17. Shares of Sprint, which is about 84 percent owned by Softbank Group Corp, rose 7.1% to $7.97. Dish was up 0.7% at $39.44.

But the deal still faces a significant challenge: A group of U.S. state attorneys general, including from New York and California, have sued to block the merger on antitrust grounds, arguing the proposed deal would cost consumers more than $4.5 billion annually.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James indicated the lawsuit would continue, at least in part because of what critics see as Dish’s failure to live up to pledges it had made.

“We have serious concerns that cobbling together this new fourth mobile player, with the government picking winners and losers, will not address the merger’s harm to consumers, workers, and innovation,” she said.

The Justice Department, backed by five state attorneys general, said the deal required the merging companies to sell Virgin Mobile and Sprint’s prepaid business and provide Dish with access to 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations.

Prepaid wireless phones are generally sought by lower-income people who cannot pass a credit check.

Dish has agreed to acquire spectrum, or airwaves that carry data, in a deal valued at $3.6 billion from the merged firm and pay $1.4 billion for Sprint’s prepaid business that serves about 9.3 million customers. Dish will get access to the new T-Mobile’s network for seven years while it builds its own 5G network.

T-Mobile and Dish are also required to work out a deal where T-Mobile can use Dish’s unused 600 MHz spectrum and the companies are required to use eSIM, which allows consumers to switch easily between carriers, a Justice Department official said.

SKEPTICAL LAWMAKERS

T-Mobile competes with Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T; Inc (T.N).

U.S. consumers tend to stick with one mobile carrier for years, giving companies a steady stream of cash. As more people rely on cell phones for social media, banking or news and entertainment, the lines have blurred between telecom, content and cable companies, just as so-called 5G technology promises to make mobile phones even more powerful.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement on Friday he would soon circulate a formal order supporting the deal. The FCC could vote on final approval in August or September, officials said.

The FCC agreed to give Dish more time to use spectrum it previously acquired. The company could face up to $2.2 billion in penalties and lose its spectrum licenses if it fails to meet its commitments to build its network, according to a letter filed Friday with the FCC. Dish must have a 5G network covering at least 70% of the U.S. population no later than June 14, 2023.

Dish has spent years stockpiling wireless spectrum and faced a looming March 2020 deadline to build a product using the spectrum in order to fulfill its license requirements.

A smartphones with Sprint logo are seen in front of a screen projection of T-mobile logo, in this picture illustration taken April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Some senior lawmakers remained skeptical about the merger, including Senators Mike Lee, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, the top lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee.

Lee said he was hopeful the divestiture would succeed but uneasy about Dish’s dual role as a critic of the transaction and a buyer of divested assets.

Klobuchar, who is running for president, reiterated that she had wanted the deal stopped. “It looked like a bad deal then, and it looks like a bad deal today, despite the parties’ promises and this proposed consent decree,” she said. </s> The Justice Department on Friday approved the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, the third- and fourth-largest wireless companies in the United States, saying its antitrust concerns had been addressed and giving its blessing to a deal that would reshape the nation’s wireless industry.

Critics of the merger have said it would reduce competition by lowering the number of wireless carriers from four to three, resulting in higher cellphone bills. On Friday, those critics, a group that includes attorneys general from several states and Democratic presidential candidates, continued to voice their objections to the deal, saying the combination would harm consumers.

Until recently, the Justice Department shared those concerns. In a news briefing on Friday, Makan Delrahim, the Trump administration’s top antitrust regulator, said the agency had only decided to approve the deal after T-Mobile and Sprint agreed last week to sell off significant portions of their businesses to the pay-television operator Dish Network as part of a plan to create a potential new major wireless company. Under the agreement’s terms, Delrahim said, “Dish is in a unique position to succeed.”

The merger deal’s terms call for T-Mobile, the larger of the two companies, to effectively buy Sprint in an all-stock transaction valued at $26.5 billion. The combined company, to be called T-Mobile and led by T-Mobile’s chief executive, John Legere, would be a formidable rival to AT&T, the largest wireless carrier in the country, and Verizon, the second-largest.

Before getting the Justice Department’s approval, T-Mobile and Sprint took steps to win over the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the telecommunications industry. In May, Ajit Pai, the commission’s chairman, signaled his support after the companies committed to investing heavily in rural broadband service and the fifth-generation cellular networks known as 5G, which brings faster-than-broadband speeds through the air.

In addition to extending reliable internet access to rural areas, 5G is expected to fuel the development of autonomous cars and other so-called moonshot projects. President Donald Trump has argued that the technology is critical to national security, citing its importance in his administration’s crackdown on the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. T-Mobile and Sprint have said they would have a more difficult time making progress with 5G as separate businesses than they would as one entity.

Although the Justice Department’s approval was a crucial step forward for the merger, it is not a done deal. In a rare move last month, the attorneys general of 13 states and the District of Columbia threw a significant obstacle in its path when they sued to block the transaction.

On a conference call Friday, Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said the plan to transform Dish into a fourth major wireless carrier was not realistic.

“Dish has never owned any kind of mobile wireless business,” she said. “Dish has no experience building or operating a nationwide mobile wireless network.” James added that the agreement brokered by the Justice Department would hurt consumers and “violates antitrust laws.”

T-Mobile and Sprint have reached a $5 billion agreement to give Dish Sprint’s prepaid wireless businesses, including Boost Mobile, which is popular with lower-income customers, and some of its airwaves, known as spectrum.

Critics have contended that Dish would not be a legitimate competitor to the merged companies because it would only have about 9 million customers and its wireless service would have to operate on T-Mobile’s network, generating more revenue for T-Mobile.

Dish plans to create a fully owned network, but building the infrastructure for it would be expensive, and Dish has been losing subscribers steadily to cheaper streaming services.

The Justice Department’s approval of the merger relies on the future actions of Dish, a company with a history of violations that is controlled by billionaire Charles Ergen, an expert poker player and tough negotiator. Dish would face millions of dollars in fines if it failed to build out its cellular service, Delrahim said.

In a statement on Friday, Dish said it would voluntarily pay a fine of up to $2.2 billion if it failed to deploy a 5G network covering at least 70 percent of the country’s population in the next four years. </s> The U.S. Department of Justice approved the $26 billion between Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile U.S., the department said Friday.

The approval clears a major hurdle for the proposed deal between the two telecom giants.

“With this merger and accompanying divestiture, we are expanding output significantly by ensuring that large amounts of currently unused or underused spectrum are made available to American consumers in the form of high-quality 5G networks,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

As part of its Justice Department agreement, both carriers will be required to sell assets including prepaid brand Boost Mobile to satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp.

Dish will also get the first crack to purchase telephone towers that T-Mobile declares redundant, the Justice Department said.

Those conditions would make Dish a new, fourth wireless competitor taking Sprint’s place in the marketplace.

“Today’s settlement will provide Dish with the assets and transitional services required to become a facilities-based mobile network operator that can provide a full range of mobile wireless services nationwide,” Mr. Delrahim said.

The Justice Department also announced that the attorneys general for five states opposing the deal reached a settlement. In June, the officials filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court to block the merger. They argued the deal will cost consumers more than $4.5 billion annually. </s> The Justice Department approved T-Mobile US Inc.’s merger with Sprint Corp. after the companies agreed to create a new wireless carrier by selling assets to satellite-TV provider Dish Network Corp. The landmark antitrust agreement seeks to address concerns that the combination of T-Mobile, the nation’s No. 3 carrier by subscribers, and No. 4 Sprint will drive up prices for consumers. It would leave more than 95% of American cellphone customers with the top three U.S. operators.

A deal brokered by the Justice Department will require Dish, which has been sitting on valuable airwaves, to build a 5G network for cellphone customers. To help it get started, T-Mobile will sell Sprint’s prepaid brands to Dish and give access to the combined carrier’s network for seven years. “The remedies set up Dish as a disruptive force in wireless” with the pieces needed for the company to have a cellphone service that is ready to go, Makan Delrahim, the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, said in a news conference. Critics of the arrangement include a group of state attorneys general that broke with the Justice Department and have filed an antitrust lawsuit seeking to block the more than $26 billion merger. Five states that weren’t part of the lawsuit joined the federal government in the settlement announced Friday.

“Why scramble so much to create a fourth competitor when you already have one?” said Samuel Weinstein, an assistant law professor at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University who worked previously in the Justice Department’s antitrust unit. The deal gives Dish, a satellite-TV provider, about 9 million Sprint prepaid cellphone customers and additional wireless spectrum. Those subscribers, which mostly come from its Boost Mobile business, represent about one-fifth of Sprint’s customer base. Dish’s service, which could keep the Boost brand or take on a new name, would also be able to move from pay-as-you-go plans to postpaid service, which tends to be more profitable. T-Mobile and Sprint must also give Dish access to at least 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations. The new T-Mobile must provide “robust access” to its network, the Justice Department said. The union of T-Mobile and Sprint, years in the making, would create a wireless company surpassing 90 million U.S. customers, closing the gap with Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., which each have roughly 100 million wireless customers. It also would fulfill a long-held goal of Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., which owns most of Sprint, and Deutsche Telekom AG, which controls T-Mobile. Shares of T-Mobile rose on the news and are trading near all-time highs. Sprint shares also were higher. Dish, whose stock price has slumped this week on news of the arrangement, were up Friday.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, who had previously backed the deal, said Friday the Justice Department settlement, coupled with T-Mobile and Sprint’s earlier commitments to deploy a nationwide 5G network, will preserve competition and advance U.S. leadership in rolling out next-generation networks. U.S. carriers have been battling for customers in the $180 billion voice-and-data market, where growth has slowed now that the companies have rolled out unlimited data plans and most Americans have upgraded to smartphones.

The federal approval for T-Mobile and Sprint caps a more than yearlong review of a combination that fell apart twice in the past five years over terms of the deal or fears that the Justice Department would object. The Justice Department, under the Obama administration, told the companies that shrinking from four to three national providers was anticompetitive. The companies tried again under Trump appointees to push the deal through, ultimately agreeing to divest assets to Dish to win approval. In its agreement with the government, T-Mobile promised not to raise prices for three years and cover 97% of the U.S. population with 5G service in three years. T-Mobile has been adding millions of customers at the expense of its rivals, pushing unlimited data plans and lower prices than the incumbents. Sprint, despite owning valuable airwaves, has been shedding millions of subscribers and has struggled to be profitable. T-Mobile surpassed Sprint to become the No. 3 player by subscribers and argued the acquisition of the smaller carrier’s airwaves would help speed its deployment of a 5G network so that it could better compete with Verizon and AT&T. Dish, which generated $13.6 billion in annual revenue last year, had about $13 billion of net debt before the deal. It will need to shell out billions of dollars in the coming years to absorb the wireless carriers’ castoff assets, build its own network and vie for customers. A group of states led by the attorneys general of New York and California are pressing ahead with an antitrust lawsuit seeking to block the combination, saying it would harm consumers. All the officials who joined the suit are Democrats; those who decided to support the Justice Department on Friday are Republicans. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said the coalition of state officials seeking to block the deal oppose the Justice Department’s settlement. “We have serious concerns that cobbling together this new fourth mobile player, with the government picking winners and losers, will not address the merger’s harm to consumers, workers and innovation,” she said.

Mr. Delrahim said his office will share its settlement with the federal judge overseeing the states’ lawsuit. “Sometimes independent sovereigns do make independent determinations,” he said. The trial is scheduled to start in October. On Friday, T-Mobile and Sprint extended the deadline to close their deal, from July 29 to Nov. 1. T-Mobile said it expects to close its Sprint purchase in the second half of this year despite the states’ lawsuit. The Justice Department stopped sharing information with the Democratic attorneys general after they decided to file their lawsuit in June without notifying their federal counterparts, Mr. Delrahim said. “That was their choice, not ours,” he said. Under the deal, Dish will pay $1.4 billion for the Sprint customer accounts, most of which come from its Boost prepaid brand, and $3.6 billion three years later to buy Sprint spectrum licenses in the 800-megahertz range, which can travel long distances and cover rural areas. The new T-Mobile will have the option to lease back part of that spectrum for an additional two years after the airwaves sale closes. The companies have also agreed to negotiate for T-Mobile to lease Dish spectrum in the 600-megahertz range. Dish is set to start its wireless life with a base of Sprint’s pay-as-you-go customers, though carriers often struggle to keep those so-called prepaid subscribers. More than 4% of Sprint’s prepaid customers choose to drop their service or are disconnected for nonpayment each month, according to company filings. The deal creates a fake competitor, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a lecturer at Georgetown Law, adding that even if Dish builds out its own network it will take years. During that time, the three large carriers will be able to introduce 5G and lock in their subscriber bases, he said. “Rather than having Sprint as a weak fourth competitor, the combined companies will now face an extremely weak fourth competitor,” Mr. Schwartzman said. Sprint ended March with nearly $33 billion of net debt on its balance sheet. Even though it had more than 40 million customers, Sprint said during deal negotiations that it was in poor health and wouldn’t be able to launch nationwide 5G service without the merger. Dish has argued it can build a better network by starting from scratch. Even before he pursued a deal with the Justice Department, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen said his business could invest capital more efficiently without the burden of old equipment and software holding back its ambitions. Dish hasn’t made public the prices or structure of the wireless plans it will sell. Senior FCC officials said on a call with reporters that they are confident the new carrier under Dish will be viable because the wholesale deal it has struck with the new T-Mobile is more aggressive than any other such arrangement the carrier and Sprint currently have. Its terms give Dish the financial ability to compete in the prepaid market against T-Mobile’s Metro brand, they said. The settlement also included provisions designed to make sure Dish actually builds the promised infrastructure. Among other penalties, the satellite company agreed to pay the government up to $2.2 billion if it fails to meet its network expansion requirements. Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Sarah Krouse at sarah.krouse@wsj.com </s> T-Mobile’s planned merger with Sprint has been in limbo over the last several weeks, with a report suggesting that DOJ officials are unlikely to approve the deal in its current form. Now, Sprint and T-Mobile have agreed to extend the deadline for their merger.

The two carriers announced today that they have extended the deadline for their deal until July 29th. This means that Sprint and T-Mobile now have until then to convince both the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice that a merger is good for consumers.

In an interview on CNBC (via Reuters), U.S. Justice Department Antitrust Division chief Makan Delrahim said that he has not made a decision regarding the T-Mobile and Sprint merger and is awaiting more data from the two companies:

“I have not made up my mind,” he told CNBC. “The investigation continues. We’ve requested some data from the companies that will be forthcoming. We don’t have a set number of meetings or a time line.” “If the case is there for us to challenge a transaction or suggest changes, we will do that,” he said. The division is reviewing the argument that the deal would allow the combined company to produce a better, faster 5G, the next generation of wireless, he added.

John Legere has promised that “New T-Mobile” prices will be the same or better as current Sprint and T-Mobile prices. The two have also touted that a merger would create a more powerful 5G network for consumers.

The Wall Street Journal last month reported that antitrust officials are skeptical of the arguments presented by T-Mobile and Sprint. Legere, however, called the report “simply untrue.” It’s likely that the extension announced today will give the two carriers more time to address those concerns.

What do you think of T-Mobile’s proposed merger with Sprint? Let us know down in the comments.

Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news: </s> AT&T wasted little time celebrating after a federal judge approved its $85 billion acquisition of content giant Time Warner, saying in a statement it will move quickly to close the deal on or before 20 June.

In a ruling handed down today (12 June), Judge Richard Leon rejected the US Department of Justice’s (DoJ) argument the deal would harm competition and consumer choice. He approved the transaction without any conditions.

AT&T general counsel David McAtee said in a statement the operator is “pleased” with the decision and looks forward to offering consumers “video entertainment that is more affordable, mobile and innovative”.

The defeat is the first for the DoJ in an antitrust case since 2004.

Implications

 Leon’s ruling reaffirmed the government’s tendency to approve deals between companies in non-competing spheres, which are known as vertical mergers. Analysts said the decision paves the way for a flurry of additional merger activity.

Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner told Mobile World Live the loss will make it tougher for DoJ antitrust head Makan Delrahim to fight other tie ups, including the proposed merger between Sprint and T-Mobile US.

“It will make M&A a lot easier because the DoJ has been weakened. Usually the DoJ has an 80 to 90 per cent win record when it comes to suing. The government usually doesn’t lose in court, so that’s a major setback for Makan Delrahim. He has a loss chalked up.”

The victory also means perks could soon be on the way for AT&T customers.

During the trial, AT&T disclosed plans to launch a new OTT video bundle which will include Time Warner channels. The service will cost most users $15 per month, but AT&T said its unlimited wireless customers will gain access for free. </s> T-Mobile’s planned takeover of Sprint took a sizable step forward on Friday after a deal negotiated with the U.S. Justice Department behind closed doors was announced.



Under the proposed scheme, the nation’s third and fourth-largest wireless carriers would be forced to sell off wireless spectrum and prepaid businesses (such as Boost Mobile) to Dish Network, the Colorado-based satellite TV provider, effectively making it the country’s fourth-largest wireless carrier, even though it would rely entirely on T-Mobile’s own network.

T-Mobile and Sprint “must make available to Dish at least 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations,” the Justice Department said in a statement. The company that results from the deal, which would be known as T-Mobile, must also provide Dish with “robust access” to its network for a period of seven years, as Dish attempts to build out its own 5G network.

The $26 billion deal, which enjoys vocal support from the White House, still faces one significant hurdle: a lawsuit brought by 14 state attorneys general, all of whom are Democrats.

While T-Mobile applauded the settlement, promising it would create new jobs, lower prices, and better quality internet, consumer advocates long critical of the deal said it would accomplish precisely the opposite. Many characterized the deal as impossible to carry out given the government’s own history of lax enforcement around megamergers.

“No one who has followed merger enforcement over the past decade can seriously believe this will work,” Joshua Stager, senior counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute said in a statement sent to Gizmodo. “The government’s track record of enforcing merger conditions is exceptionally poor.”

“The FCC, in particular, lacks credibility given that it has already announced a decision to rubber-stamp the merger without such a remedy,” he added.

Gigi Sohn, a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy, accused Justice Department officials of bowing to political pressure from the White House. “The state AGs who sued to block the merger shouldn’t be fooled by this weak attempt to maintain competition in the mobile wireless market,” she said in her statement.

“A new mobile wireless entrant that starts with zero postpaid subscribers and that must rely on its much bigger rival, the new T-Mobile, just to operate is not a competitor. It’s a mobile Frankenstein,” added Sohn.

Jessica Rosenworcel, an FCC commissioner, tweeted that she remains skeptical that settlement will be good for consumers and the economy. She urged the Federal Communications Commission, which previously rubberstamped the merger without the Justice Department’s new conditions in place, to allow the public the opportunity to weigh in and comment.

“Too much here has been done behind closed doors,” she said. </s> NEW YORK (CNN) – T-Mobile and Sprint have finally agreed to a massive telecom merger after years of negotiations punctuated by two breakups.

The agreement would leave just three major wireless carriers in the United States and must clear antitrust regulators. The combined company, which will take on the name T-Mobile, would be positioned as a fierce competitor to Verizon and AT&T.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who will head the merged company, said on a conference call Sunday that the firm plans to deliver “the highest capacity network in US history.”

He said the company will hire thousands of people in a bid to create a nationwide network that will position the United States as the leader in providing 5G connectivity.

A recent report from research firm Analysys Mason suggests it’s China and South Korea, not the United States, that are currently leading 5G development.

The move combines the third and fourth largest wireless service providers in the nation. Sprint was valued at $26 billion based on its last closing price, and T-Mobile was last valued at $55 billion. The deal values Sprint near its latest closing share price of $6.50.

Andrew Schwartzman, an attorney who specializes in telecommunications and a professor at Georgetown Law, said he expects it will be “difficult” to get regulators to sign off on the merger.

Sprint and T-Mobile first discussed a merger in 2014 but scrapped it because of concerns about regulatory challenges from the Obama administration.

Schwartzman noted the deal was blocked because regulators determined that the wireless market could support four major players, and having them compete benefited consumers.

“It will be difficult to convince the Justice Department that circumstances have changed so much that it’s necessary to go down to three providers,” he said. “That’s the major hurdle that has to be confronted.”

The companies expected to have a better shot at the merger under the Trump administration.

Sprint stock tanks as T-Mobile merger said to collapse

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son met with President Donald Trump the month before he took office to talk up an investment in US businesses.

A few weeks later, T-Mobile’s Legere said he was open to “various forms of consolidation” when asked about a potential merger with Sprint and SoftBank under the Trump administration.

But last November, after much speculation, the two companies issued a statement saying they had “ceased talks.”

“While we couldn’t reach an agreement to combine our companies, we certainly recognize the benefits of scale through a potential combination. However, we have agreed that it is best to move forward on our own,” Marcelo Claure, the Sprint CEO, said at the time.

Sprint and T-Mobile’s announcement is just the latest step in an ongoing movement towards telecom consolidation. AT&T is in talks to acquire Time Warner, which owns CNN. The outcome of that $85 billion merger-in-the-making depends on a case in federal court, which is pending the decision of the judge.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has decided to recuse himself from deliberations about whether the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department ought to challenge the planned merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, says a Reuters source "familiar with the decision". Barr is invested in both of the firms involved.