In a Law360 article, WilmerHale’s Hallie B. Levin explained the winning approach her team took in the landmark T-Mobile/Sprint antitrust trial that resulted in a victory against 14 state Attorneys General, clearing the way for the telecom giants’ monumental merger earlier this year.
Ms. Levin, a partner and co-lead counsel for client T-Mobile in the antitrust trial, told Law360 that her team wanted to emphasize the real world facts about the merger and the benefits it would bring to consumers, as opposed to simply focusing on competing economic models and data. That turned out to be wise; in his opinion, US District Judge Victor Marrero pointedly said such arguments typically cancel each other out in antitrust trials.
As Ms. Levin told Law360, she wanted the court to understand the persuasive facts about the better future consumers would experience with the merger. To convey those facts, Ms. Levin called as witnesses then-CEO John Legere and his successor Mike Sievert. Under Ms. Levin’s questioning, both executives detailed T-Mobile’s reputation as a fierce competitor to AT&T and Verizon based on their proven “uncarrier” business model.
“We worked hard to focus their testimony on, and support their testimony with, the contemporaneous documentary record of what the company has done and will do going forward,” Ms. Levin told Law360. “That was always our design in helping the company be concrete and persuasive about what it is and what it has accomplished.”