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Speaker 1: Today Bloomberg Lajos drum Grosso, and Greg Sture discuss anti
Speaker 1: trust issues that may surround any plans to combine Sprint
Speaker 1: and T Mobile. They speak with Jennifer Ree, senior litigation
Speaker 1: analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, sketch out if you would quickly
Speaker 1: first just the state of the mobile phone market. Where
Speaker 1: do Sprint and T Mobile fit? What share of the
Speaker 1: market do they have? That sort of thing? Well, right now,
Speaker 1: essentially in the US, they're just really four big wireless players,
Speaker 1: and I think most people know that with Verizon is
Speaker 1: the biggest at around thirty eight percent based on Bloomberg data,
Speaker 1: which which isn't precise, but it's close a T and
Speaker 1: T at about market share, T Mobile at about and
Speaker 1: Sprint at about eleven percent, and then leaves about ten
Speaker 1: percent for a lot of smaller non national type players.
Speaker 1: Had things in the marketplace changed a lot since the
Speaker 1: previous attempt to merge the companies was rejected, or is
Speaker 1: it more about the change in administrations? You know, I
Speaker 1: think things have changed, but a lot of things have
Speaker 1: also stayed the same. About what was problematic in the past,
Speaker 1: some of those factors will remain problematic today. And of
Speaker 1: course the administration is changing too, and there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation about that. And I think historically Republican
Speaker 1: administrations do tend to be easier on deals than democratic ones,
Speaker 1: but not in an extreme manner, really only on the fringe,
Speaker 1: just sort of the slightest bit. There isn't really a
Speaker 1: big difference in the evaluation that that the antitrust regulators
Speaker 1: will go through to determine whether a deal might be
Speaker 1: harmful to a market is the same no matter what
Speaker 1: political party you come from. So, as you laid it out,
Speaker 1: Sprint and T Mobile are a distant third and fourth
Speaker 1: in the market, and and I think one can anticipate
Speaker 1: if they go forward with this, they will argue that
Speaker 1: we will be a stronger competitor to Verizon and a
Speaker 1: T and T um Is that an argument that you
Speaker 1: see as having in the potential to have some legs
Speaker 1: to it. Greg, I think it's one of the best
Speaker 1: arguments they have. I think it's a good argument, and
Speaker 1: I think it's it's likely, you know, a good argument
Speaker 1: for them to go in with, and and if they
Speaker 1: have any chance at all, it's it's probably based on
Speaker 1: something like that. I think the problem here is that
Speaker 1: they it's an uphill climb. They walk in, you know,
Speaker 1: with the odds against them, because as a threshold matter,
Speaker 1: agencies will ask the d J will ask, well, what
Speaker 1: is the concentration in the market, And that's just a
Speaker 1: matter of math, and they take those market shares, they
Speaker 1: square them, and they sum the squares, and they look
Speaker 1: at the difference before the merger and after the merger,
Speaker 1: and if those numbers exceed that change that difference exceeds
Speaker 1: two hundred, which it does here in a market that
Speaker 1: is deemed to be highly concentrated, which this is automatically,
Speaker 1: they consider that as a threshold matter, to be a
Speaker 1: deal likely to cause harm to the market. As Jennifer Ree,
Speaker 1: senior litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, speaking at the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Student Grosso and Greg Sture, you can listen to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law weekdays at one p m. Wall Street Time here
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio Now. Among his top legal stories from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law, A federal appeals court has reinstated the six
Speaker 1: game suspension a pro football star Ezekiel Elliott. A trial
Speaker 1: judge had halted the punishment after determining the NFL's arbitration
Speaker 1: process had treated the Dallas running back unfairly. Elliot was
Speaker 1: accused of mistreating a former girlfriend, but no formal charges
Speaker 1: were filed. Elliott's legal team says it's now considering its
Speaker 1: options and as this morning's Bloomberg Law Brief, you can
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg BNA dot com. Attorneys will find exceptional legal research
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