Wed 10/16/2019 13:47 PM
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Takeaways
 
  • Counsel for joint applicants Sprint and T-Mobile submitted a supplemental filing today, Wednesday, Oct. 16, in response to certain scheduling issues that were raised at the prehearing conference before the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, held on Thursday, Oct. 10.
  • Sprint and T-Mobile have submitted a schedule that would enable a final CPUC decision to be reached by Jan. 16, 2020.
  • The companies submit that “[a] decision no later than the January meeting is critical to ensure that the Commission’s review in this matter does not extend beyond the conclusion of the remaining proceedings that are ongoing at the federal level.”

Counsel for joint applicants Sprint and T-Mobile submitted a supplemental filing today, Wednesday, Oct. 16, in response to certain scheduling issues that were raised at the prehearing conference before the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, held on Thursday, Oct. 10.

In their filing, the joint applicants reiterate that “no further process is needed [before the CPUC and] a final decision can and should be issued this year” on Sprint and T-Mobile’s wireline application. The joint applicants also submit, however, that to the extent Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer determines any additional process is appropriate, any such process should be “streamlined, narrowly tailored, and highly expedited.”

In furtherance of their position, Sprint and T-Mobile have submitted a schedule that would enable a final CPUC decision to be reached by Jan. 16, 2020.
 

Specifically, the applicants state that their proposed schedule would enable a proposed decision to be reached by Dec. 17 and a commission vote on the decision at the commission’s Jan. 16 business meeting.

According to the applicants’ letter, the intervenors seek a proposed decision by the “2nd Quarter of 2020.” Any final decision reached after January 2020 would be “unreasonable” to the applicants, they said.

The intervenors’ proposed schedule submitted earlier this month proposes that reply briefs be filed by Feb. 24, 2020, while leaving the deadline for a proposed decision open to as late as June 30, 2020.
 

The CPUC began its review of the transaction in July 2018. The transaction was conditionally approved by the DOJ this summer.

Separately, the companies are preparing to go to trial against a New York-led group of state attorneys general seeking to block the merger. That trial, set for early December, would run closely to the timeline laid out today by the applicants in their filing.

Reorg M&A’s previous coverage of this transaction can be found HERE.

--Patrick Flavin and Matt Tracy
 
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