In a somewhat unsurprising move, AT&T and Time Warner have agreed to extend the termination date of their proposed merger on the heels of an antitrust suit filed by the DOJ to block the deal.
AT&T said in a Tuesday SEC filing that the termination date has been extended until April 22, 2018, and the telecom giant wrote that it intends to “vigorously contest the DOJ’s allegations and is confident that the court will reject the DOJ’s challenge to the merger.”
AT&T previously extended an earlier Oct. 22 termination deadline “for a short period of time” in order to secure final regulatory approvals, but at the time AT&T said the deal was still expected to close by year end.
Earlier this month, however, reports surfaced that Justice Department regulators pushed AT&T to divest some assets in order to clear the merger. Last week the U.S. Department of Justice filed a suit to block the $85 billion deal, saying the merger “would greatly harm American consumers.”
For its part, AT&T called the antitrust suit “a radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent.”
