Justice Department Asks FCC for Time to Review Softbank Acquisition of Sprint

The U.S. Justice Department has asked the Federal Communications Commission to to defer consideration of the Softbank acquisition of Sprint to give DoJ time to review the deal from a national security perspective, Bloomberg reports.

Separately, Dish Network Corp., which has submitted a bid of its own for parts of Clearwire, and also has asked for a careful review of the proposed Softbank acquisition of Sprint, said it won’t seek regulatory action to block the transaction. Dish still is pursuing its own deal to buy parts of Clearwire. 

Some observers might argue that the Dish decision not to try and block the Softbank deal is a signal that what Dish really wants is a business deal with Sprint, not an actual takeover of Clearwire. By that line of thinking, Dish really is seeking leverage to convince Sprint to partner with Dish to help Dish build its own Long Term Evolution network.