Federal Judge Harold Greene is an old hand at throwing spanners into works, and he characteristically ruled late Tuesday that AT&T Co’s proposed $12,600m acquisition of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc clearly violates the 1982 consent decree that broke up the Bell System. In the court’s view, there can be no serious doubt that the merger would indeed violate the plain and express language of the decree, he wrote in response to a complaint lodged by BellSouth Corp. AT&T needs the judge’s approval because McCaw holds minority interests in cellular companies in which two regional Bell companies also have stakes. The judge also denied AT&T’s request for a quick federal court waiver to allow the takeover to proceed, but said AT&T still could come back and argue for a waiver or modification in an attempt to save the deal. We are going to move quickly to state our case AT&T said. We’re confident that we can win a waiver on the merits and complete the merger on schedule. A full 99% of McCaw shareholders approved the deal, which has been approved by regulators in every state except California. McCaw is also confident that the deal will be closed by June 30 or shortly after.
