T-Mobile-Sprint Trial on Track After U.S. Fight Over Lawyer

(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge said the U.S. Justice Department waited too long to try to disqualify the lead lawyer for a group of states that are suing to block T-Mobile US Inc.’s takeover of Sprint Corp.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Lehrburger in Manhattan denied the government’s request to intervene in the case, saying the agency’s antitrust division “could have and should have” acted sooner to block the attorney before a high-stakes trial that’s set to begin next month.

The Justice Department sought to bar attorney Glenn Pomerantz from representing the states because he was previously the lead trial lawyer for the U.S. in the government’s 2011 lawsuit to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed purchase of T-Mobile -- a deal the companies abandoned.

The U.S. government, which has cleared the proposed $26.5 billion deal, said Pomerantz would taint the trial with his involvement, though neither T-Mobile nor Sprint objected his role. The states announced the hiring in April.

Disqualifying Pomerantz now would be “extremely prejudicial” to all parties, Lehrburger said Thursday. Even if the U.S. had been allowed to intervene, the judge said, he still would have rejected the request to disqualify the Los Angeles-based lawyer because the government’s claim that he has access to confidential information is speculative.

“We will be relentless in this fight for consumer choice and real competition,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

T-Mobile says the deal will speed deployment of the next generation of wireless technology known as 5G and lower prices for consumers. The states, led by New York and California, claim the deal will slash competition and raise prices for consumers, particularly in urban areas.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider, Anthony Lin

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