WilmerHale partners Hallie Levin, Peter Neiman and John Butts were named Litigation Daily’s “Litigators of the Week” for their extraordinary Delaware Chancery Court victory for client T-Mobile US Inc. in its high-stakes dispute with Cox Communications Inc.
On Oct. 8, 2021, Vice Chancellor Morgan T. Zurn granted T-Mobile’s request to enjoin Cox Communications from partnering with any mobile network operator other than T-Mobile to provide wholesale wireless services to Cox.
That decision came after a five-day August trial in the case, expedited due to Cox’s looming deadline to begin providing wireless services to its customers via Verizon’s network after breaking its agreement with Sprint, acquired in 2020 by T-Mobile.
The nation’s three wireless providers sell their services at retail directly to consumers and wholesale to mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), such as cable companies seeking to include wireless services among their offerings.
In the Q&A feature accompanying the Litigators of the Week recognition, Ms. Levin explained the case’s importance. As WilmerHale’s first chair representing T-Mobile in its 2020 antitrust trial victory against state attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia who unsuccessfully sued to stop T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint (for which she was previously named a litigator of the week) she was uniquely positioned to tackle the chancery court trial.
“At stake was a valuable contract right T-Mobile obtained through its merger with Sprint, which gave T-Mobile the right to be Cox’s exclusive provider of wholesale wireless mobile service if Cox decided to become an MVNO. Sprint’s leadership was prescient in negotiating for that right as part of an agreement it executed with Cox in 2017 to settle patent infringement claims… We sued for an injunction to hold Cox to the terms of its agreement with Sprint.”
Mr. Butts described the three attorneys’ trial roles: “At trial, Hallie took the lead on the T-Mobile negotiations, doing the direct examinations of our key witnesses, Peter crossed the key Cox witnesses on the MVNO negotiations and selection, and I addressed the principals in the settlement negotiations and the pricing/damages experts. I consider myself fortunate to work with so many great lawyers at the firm and am in awe of their talent...”
Mr. Neiman discussed a key trial takeaway, saying that T-Mobile demonstrated good faith in its negotiations with Cox that even led some of Cox’s officials to recommend T-Mobile before Cox decided on Verizon.
“It’s critical for companies to remember the centrality of the factual record even in a case that, in large part, turned on the construction of a contract,” Mr. Neiman said. "Sprint had negotiated for a contract term that gave T-Mobile substantial leverage in the business negotiations. Many companies would have used that leverage to try to extract terms they would not otherwise seek in a commercial negotiation. T-Mobile took a different approach…”
The featured litigators gave credit to others at WilmerHale for their roles in the victory: Partner Perry Lange, as well as Counsel Denise Tsai, Senior Associates Paul Vanderslice and Sam Leifer, Associate Jared Grubow, and former Senior Associate David Rudin. In addition, they cited co-counsel, Tom Bayliss of Abrams & Bayliss and Laura Buckland and Melissa Scanlan of T-Mobile as invaluable members of the team whose strategies resulted in victory.
