Taking on a Veteran Antitrust Judge in the AT&T Fight

[ClarkUSA]

Source: The New York Times

As the Obama administration and AT&T prepare to battle over AT&T’s $39 billion deal for T-Mobile USA, they will do so before a judge who has refereed many big antitrust fights.

Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, in her 12 years on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, has overseen numerous antitrust cases brought by regulators, including at least one in which she sided against the government and another that involved AT&T.

She is also used to handling notable court matters, having presided over the trial of the disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s settlement talks with Citigroup over subprime mortgages... experts say that the Justice Department has a strong hand in this case. Should the T-Mobile deal go through, the nation would labor under a de facto mobile duopoly of AT&T and Verizon Wireless, according to the government’s complaint.

And it might not just be a matter of selling off billions of dollars worth of assets, as in the case of UnitedHealth; the Justice Department could seek the replacement of a major competitor.

Read more: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/taking-on-a-veteran-antitrust-judge-in-the-att-fight/

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Judge Huvelle is hard to read. Her ideology is not apparent in her decisions. I hope she does the right thing for We The People.

[AtheistCrusader]

1. AT&T has to hand over something like 3bn to T-Mobile if the bid fails

so a lot is riding on this. Will be interesting to see the decision.