AT&T Fires Back At DoJ Over Merger

AT&T has href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/09/technology-mobile-telecommunications-us-at-amp-t-t-mobile-legal-challenge_8669566.html">filed an official legal response to the DoJ’s move to block their merger with T-Mobile, and you can href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/att-responds-to-justice-dept-s-lawsuit-over-t-mobile-deal/">read the entire thing here if you’re so inclined. If you want the TL;DR version (and I can’t blame you), AT&T is essentially pulling a teenagers, and screaming “you don’t understand me!” at the government.

AT&T claims that since T-Mobile is so much smaller and not a threat to AT&T, that absorbing them is not anticompetitive. They believe the Justice Department doesn’t understand the market, and that since T-Mobile is currently losing subscribers, their current owners — Deutsche Telekom — don’t want to invest in updating infrastructure.

Three members of the House Energy and Commerce committee —  Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan, Greg Walden of Oregon and Joe Barton of Texas — all think that blocking the merger would stifle job creation. Now, I’m not a politician nor an economist, but don’t major mergers generally result in significant job losses due to redundant positions within the new system?