The FCC’s recently released Fifteenth Report on Wireless Competition reflects positive change at the agency. Under Chairman Julius Genachowski, the FCC is increasingly looking to more economic analyses of markets and competition and declining to endorse the conclusions of the major services providers that Wireless is competitive or simply restate the merits of longstanding policies.
In an article in The Wall Street Journal, Shayndi Raice and Thomas Catan highlight that FCC and DoJ approvals of the proposed AT&T-T-Mobile transaction are far from certain. Recent FCC reports and decisions adverse to AT&T (as well as Verizon Wireless) signal the FCC will review the transaction with healthy skepticism. And, as noted by
Don’t let the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) be your 3:00 AM phone call after your sale of telecom or information technology assets to foreign investors has closed.
CFIUS “is an inter-agency committee authorized to review transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person …
As widely reported, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom AG have entered into an agreement under which AT&T will acquire T-Mobile USA in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at approximately $39 billion. Countless critiques and assessments of the deal have been published. The FCC recently set the pleading schedule in connection with its review of the