In November, there was a development in the lawsuit between AT&T and Verizon customers against T-Mobile. The customers claimed that T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint led to higher prices at the other carriers. Now, T-Mobile has the opportunity to appeal against this lawsuit.
Last year, District Judge Thomas Durkin allowed AT&T and Verizon subscribers to proceed with the case, stating that they had met the necessary legal requirements. The customers argued that the price hikes they experienced were a direct result of the $26 billion T-Mobile-Sprint merger.
The proposed lawsuit aimed to represent tens to hundreds of millions of consumers and sought various penalties, including undoing the 2020 merger. Judge Durkin recently granted T-Mobile the chance to appeal this decision early in the case.
T-Mobile argued that AT&T and Verizon have control over their own pricing and that blaming the merger for any price changes is unfounded. The telecom company believes that its competitors’ customers do not have legal standing to claim damages in billions of dollars.
Lawyers representing AT&T and Verizon subscribers from Illinois and Indiana pushed for a jury trial before any appeals. They expressed concern that delaying an appellate ruling could make it harder to reverse the merger.
T-Mobile’s attorneys requested an early appeal for efficiency purposes, highlighting that forcing them into court before an appellate ruling would waste resources. In a clever move last November, T-Mobile’s attorneys suggested unhappy customers switch to T-Mobile instead of pursuing legal action against the company.
