ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL ANNOUNCES LAWSUIT BLOCKING T-MOBILE/SPRINT MEGAMERGER

Chicago — Attorney General Kwame Raoul today announced that the state of Illinois has joined a multistate lawsuit blocking the anticompetitive megamerger of telecommunications giants T-Mobile and Sprint.

“This merger would significantly decrease competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services in Illinois and across the country,” Raoul said. “With fewer companies competing, customers would face fewer choices, higher prices, less innovation and lower quality service. I am proud to stand with my counterparts in taking action to protect consumers.”

Raoul is joining a coalition of 16 attorneys general in challenging the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, adding to the momentum of the multistate lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the merger of two of the four national mobile network operators would harm mobile subscribers nationwide by reducing access to affordable, reliable wireless service, hitting lower-income and minority communities particularly hard. The coalition today reaffirmed its commitment to opposing this merger, which would reduce competition and increase prices for consumers.

Illinois is the sixth most populous state in the country and an industrial, agricultural, and transportation hub for the United States – making it highly susceptible to the harms of a megamerger between T-Mobile and Sprint. The merger of T-Mobile and Sprint would eliminate the benefits that intense competition has brought to Illinois residents and the rest of the nation’s heartland.

T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corporation are the third and fourth largest mobile wireless networks in the U.S., and are the lower-cost carriers among the “Big Four”; Verizon Wireless and AT&T round out the market. Intense competition, spurred in particular by T-Mobile and Sprint, has meant declining prices, increased coverage, and better quality for all mobile phone subscribers.

T-Mobile currently has more than 79 million subscribers, and is a majority-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG. Sprint currently has more than 54 million subscribers, and is a majority-owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp.

Joining Raoul in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

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