The extraordinary high breakup fee is important here, and it's there despite the many reasons we and the DOJ itself are citing. It seems that they breach everyt

The extraordinary high breakup fee is important here, and it's there despite the many reasons we and the DOJ itself are citing. It seems that they breach everything - it;s a terrible deal for consumers. So why are AT&T and their investment bankers pushing so hard for this deal? There is certainly an agency cost - the execs at AT&T want to do a deal and run a bigger company, and their lawyers and bankers want the deal to go ahead so they van get paid. However T-Mobile has to spend money on lawyers and bankers as well, and so some of that breakup fee will be used to pay them, as well as T-Mobile itself. AT&T were banking on a compliant DOJ, and to be fair over the last decade there was very little push-back from any of the regulators. Since the GFC we would hope that they look over business dealing a bit more firmly, and this seems to be the case. PBS have a very good article (video) on the topic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XquULysO1E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XquULysO1E In Australia, NZ and the UK there is a Commerce Commission or Monopoles Regulator that can just say no to deals like this. It's sad that the DOJ has to do so via an expensive lawsuit. Your taxes at work.