Chicago Judge Rejects Bifurcated Discovery in T-Mobile/Sprint Antitrust Case

U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin for Northern Illinois in Chicago adopted the parties’ suggested fact discovery cutoff date of Nov. 13, 2025, in the case brought by seven AT&T and Verizon customers seeking to vacate T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy on anticompetitive grounds (see 2311030011). The date “seems reasonable, given the fairly complicated and extensive scope of discovery in this case,” the judge told a telephone status conference Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-03189). Durkin also agrees with the parties to hold a status conference every 60 days, he said, with the next conference scheduled for April 5 at 9:15 a.m. CDT. He also ordered the parties to file a joint status report a week in advance of each status conference, though T-Mobile is concerned that raising any disputes in the status reports will discourage resolving those disputes without court intervention. The biggest, and only, disagreement between the parties is whether merits and class expert discovery "should be separated or proceed on the same track,” said the judge. “This case is already going slowly in my mind,” he said. “I believe there should be only one expert discovery period,” he said. “I think bifurcation will cause undue delay. It’s going to lead to some inefficiencies and, in my experience, endless disputes about whether certain expert discovery is class versus merits.” The parties currently propose that expert discovery not begin until December 2025, and “that’s almost two years from now,” said Durkin. He asked the parties to submit a joint expert discovery schedule by Friday.