T-Mobile/Sprint Suit Is 'Textbook Case' for Interlocutory Review, Says T-Mobile

The seven AT&T and Verizon customers seeking to vacate T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy on anticompetitive grounds don’t dispute that their case would have been dismissed for lack of antitrust standing if it had been filed in the 2nd or 11th circuits, said T-Mobile. It filed its reply Friday (docket 1:22-cv-03189) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago in support of its motion to certify for interlocutory appeal to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals the district court’s Nov. 2 denial of its motion to dismiss (see 2311290042). The plaintiffs also don’t dispute that if the district court grants certification and the 7th Circuit reverses, “this case will come to an immediate end, preserving substantial judicial and party resources and shielding nonparties from intrusive discovery,” said the brief. The plaintiffs “fail to identify any case, from any court, granting antitrust standing to consumers who are seeking to challenge the merger of a company with which they transact no business,” it said. As the amicus briefs from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (see 2312070029) and CTIA (see 2312120052) underscore, this legally and practically significant litigation “presents a textbook case for interlocutory review,” it said. The plaintiffs nevertheless urge the court to deny certification, but they “fundamentally misunderstand the nature of a motion to dismiss,” it said. They also ignore the many cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court, the 7th Circuit and other courts across the country have held that plaintiffs “lack antitrust standing on a motion to dismiss,” it said. There’s “at least room for reasonable debate” whether the plaintiffs “have sufficiently alleged” that T-Mobile/Sprint was “the direct and proximate cause” of alleged injuries to consumers who are supposedly paying higher prices not to T-Mobile, but to AT&T and Verizon, said the reply. “Before the doors of discovery are swung open,” the 7th Circuit “should be afforded the opportunity to definitively resolve that debatable, and highly consequential, question,” it said.