AT&T fires back after law firm tries to understand a block of T-Mobile via arbitration

Jordan Crook studied English literature at the University of New York before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps, as well as doing reviews for MobileBurn and MobileMarketer. Kruk, fascinated with the production of alternative sources of energy and greentech. It is currently a writer for CrunchGear. ? Read More

AT&T lawyers probably are not too restful weekend. On Friday a law firm accidentally wrote a letter to the FCC partially redacted identifying original cost his planned LTE build out to $ 3.8 billion. This is quite a difference from the 39 billion dollars it will cost to achieve the same goal through the acquisition of T-Mo, and many found the revelation is incredibly suspect, enough so to thwart merger. And if that wasn't enough to start the weekend, AT&T then had to make eight federal lawsuits to keep the law firms of blocking the deal through arbitration.

According to AllThingsD, Bursor & Fisher, the firm plans to attack on merging for quite some time, with the website dedicated to arguing their case and customer set AT&T to join the fight. Recalling the Antitrust Act, Clayton firm argues that individual parties that might be affected as a result of the merger shall have the right to sue to stop it from happening.

AT&T the terms of service to block customers from bringing suits against the carrier, but allowed arbitration and costs AT&T. This is where Bursor & Fisher believed that they won. "If we bring 100 cases, and we lose 99 of them we will win," lawyer Scott Bursor said in an interview. "We just have one arbitrator to say," wait a minute, this merger would damage competition. "

The company has filed arbitration cases in eight different jurisdictions, the United States. AT&T filed back in eight of them and the response issued a statement, referring to the arbitration clause in your contract:

"This merger will provide enormous benefits to clients and to disclose billions of dollars in much-needed investment, creating many thousands of well-paying jobs, which are vital in view of our weakened economy is a fact recognized consumers, government officials and groups of all types. The bottom line here is that the arbitrator has no authority to block or affect the mail merge process in any way. AT&T the arbitration agreement with our clients, recently confirmed by the Supreme Court — allows individual assistance for individual claims. Bursor & Fisher is the class of all aid, wrapped in the guise of separate arbitral proceedings, which specifically prohibited AT & T; s the arbitration agreement. Accordingly, those claims are absolutely baseless. We filed a lawsuit to stop this offensive action. "

So in other words, Bursor & Fisher rounded up to the more than 1000 clients of AT&T to the transaction. Although the company plans to move forward in each case individually, AT&T has a point when he says that the company tries to ensure the compensation of an entire class of people, not individuals.

But regardless of how it turns out that a very clear one: AT&T for T-Mobile is far from over.

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