Windstream-EarthLink Merger Clears Antitrust Hurdle

The Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission have given a clean antitrust review bill of health to the proposed $1.1 billion merger of Internet service providers Windstream and EarthLink. The deal was listed among those that had been granted early termination of their Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust reviews. Those are conducted by either the Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission—they never say which reviewed a deal when granting early termination, but Justice usually handles telecom transactions. Early termination means they are done with the review and are not suggesting that the merger be blocked or are suing to insure that certain conditions are applied.

The Federal Communications Commission will also need to sign off, but that process will take a while longer. The FCC opened its review docket on the deal Dec. 2 and reply comments are not due until Dec. 23, so there will likely be no decision before early next year. The companies signaled they did not expect the deal to be able to close until first quarter 2017. The companies announced Nov. 7 they had reached a deal for an all-stock deal of $1.1 billion, including debt.