Deutsche Telekom Still Not Served in Case to Vacate T-Mobile/Sprint

Foreign defendant Deutsche Telekom “has not yet entered” the class action that seeks to vacate T-Motion’s 2020 Sprint buy on allegations the acquisition brought competitive harm to AT&T and Verizon customers, said a docket entry Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-03189) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. That Deutsche Telekom apparently hasn't been served with court papers through diplomatic channels prompted U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin to delay the next telephone status conference another month to Feb. 24. Plaintiffs’ attorney Brendan Glackin of Lieff Cabraser told Durkin at the last status conference Oct. 21 that he thought Deutsche Telekom would be served by January (see 2210210032). The case has been somewhat in limbo for months since. The seven consumer plaintiffs, all customers of AT&T or Verizon, allege the anticompetitive nature of the T-Mobile/Sprint combination in 2020 caused their own wireless rates to soar. T-Mobile counters that the plaintiffs can't plausibly establish that their wireless service increases resulted from the acquisition, and not from "a host of other obvious alternative explanations” (see 2212060052).