AT&T executives have exactly the right person in charge of their legal department as it prepares for what most legal experts predict will be an historic and potentially long and expensive court battle with the Trump Administration, which is trying to block the global communications company’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner.
Legal experts closely following the dispute say that AT&T General Counsel David McAtee, who specialized in antitrust litigation when he was a partner at Haynes and Boone in Dallas, has the expertise to mount a successful challenge against the powerful U.S. Department of Justice.
To start, McAtee has hired lawyers in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, including Rob Walters, who is the partner-in-charge of Gibson Dunn’s Dallas operation, to lead the defense of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner.
Walters, who is the former general counsel of Energy Future Holdings, has represented several large corporations, including Tenet Healthcare, Intel, Pioneer Natural Resources and Liberty Mutual, in high-stakes litigation.
Neither McAtee nor Walters were available for comment Monday. O’Melveny & Myers is also representing AT&T and Time Warner, while Cravath is advising Time Warner.
The DOJ lawsuit seeking to block the merger on antitrust grounds sets up one of the biggest and most important antitrust cases since the DOJ’s battle with Microsoft 16 years ago.
Legal experts closely following the dispute say that the lawsuit sends one of two signals: that the Trump Justice Department is going to be much more aggressive in regulating corporate mergers and acquisitions than the business community expected or that the DOJ is bowing to pressure from President Trump, who repeatedly stated during the 2016 campaign that he would not look kindly toward AT&T if it bought CNN, which is owned by Time Warner.
In fact, legal experts say the president’s public comments are almost certainly going to part of the case.
McAtee joined AT&T in 2012 as the telecom giant’s head of litigation. In Sept. 2015, he replaced Wayne Watts as the company’s general counsel.
“Today’s DOJ lawsuit is a radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent,” McAtee said in a written statement. “Vertical mergers like this one are routinely approved because they benefit consumers without removing any competitor from the market. We see no legitimate reason for our merger to be treated differently.
“Our merger combines Time Warner’s content and talent with AT&T’s TV, wireless and broadband distribution platforms,” he continued. “The result will help make television more affordable, innovative, interactive and mobile.
“Fortunately, the Department of Justice doesn’t have the final say in this matter,” McAtee said. “Rather, it bears the burden of proving to the U.S. District Court that the transaction violates the law. We are confident that the Court will reject the Government’s claims and permit this merger under longstanding legal precedent.”
McAtee leads a legal department that employs more than 700 lawyers in-house at AT&T and hires a similar number of outside counsel on an annual basis for various legal needs ranging from intellectual property disputes and employment matters to mergers and acquisitions.
Legal experts say that McAtee and AT&T leaders should be praised for refusing to bow to the Trump Administration’s pressure.