An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Ten states led by New York and California filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to stop T-Mobile’s $26 billion purchase of Sprint, warning that consumer prices will jump due to reduced competition. The complaint comes as the U.S. Justice Department is close to making a final decision on the merger, which would reduce the number of nationwide wireless carriers to three from four. The all-Democratic attorneys general from the 10 states, including Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin, say the reduced competition would cost Sprint and T-Mobile subscribers more than $4.5 billion annually, according to the complaint. If the states’ lawsuit goes forward, the courts would have the last say, not the Justice Department, Blair Levin, an analyst with New Street Research, said in a note on Tuesday. The next two big steps will be determining the position of Makan Delrahim, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, and the identity of the judge assigned to the states’ lawsuit, Levin wrote.
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