AT&T on Friday defended its decision to withdraw its T-Mobile merger application from the Federal Communications Commission, and said the agency has "no right to stop us."
Wayne Watts, AT&T's senior executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement that the company withdrew its application before the full FCC had a chance to vote on a proposal that would essentially reject the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile.
"It has since been reported that the FCC must approve this withdrawal. This is not accurate," Watts said. "The FCC's own rules give us this right and provide that the FCC 'will' grant any such withdrawal."
"We have every right to withdraw our merger from the FCC, and the FCC has no right to stop us," Watts continued. "Any suggestion the agency might do otherwise would be an abuse of procedure which we would immediately challenge in court."
The statement comes one day after AT&T announced that it would pull its merger application from the FCC and incur a $4 billion "break-up fee." AT&T, however, insisted the deal is not dead, and said it will instead focus on winning an antitrust lawsuit brought forth by the Department of Justice, which seeks to block the merger over competition concerns.
Earlier this week, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski recommended to his fellow commissioners that the merger be reviewed by an administrative law judge because it was not in the public interest.
"The record clearly shows that—in no uncertain terms—this merger would result in a massive loss of U.S. jobs and investment," a senior FCC official said at the time.
The chairman's recommendation was basically a rejection of the deal. But technically, the FCC cannot block a transaction; it can only approve, approve with conditions, or refer to an administrative law judge. In reviewing the deal, the commission found that a combined AT&T and T-Mobile would result in unprecedented concentration and massive layoffs, FCC officials said, prompting Tuesday's order.
In its Thursday statement, AT&T said that it will seek FCC approval "as soon as practical."
Yesterday, Harold Feld, legal director with consumer group Public Knowledge, said the FCC had several options in the matter, including: dismiss the application with prejudice, which would prevent AT&T from bringing up the issue again; publish the order granting an administrative law hearing and then grant the withdrawal request; or approve the order and send it to the administrative law judge along with the rest of the case.
For more, see AT&T and T-Mobile: What's Next? Also check out the slideshow below, which chronicles some of the biggest tech-related antitrust suits.