WASHINGTON-A bankruptcy judge has approved the private-auction sale of three of bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc.’s licenses including a 10-megahertz license to serve New York to Verizon Wireless.
“The company is pleased to have secured bankruptcy court approval so quickly. Now we’ll work on obtaining the remaining government approvals that are necessary to close the transactions, which we also expect to secure in a timely fashion,” said Michael Wack, NextWave senior vice president and deputy general counsel.
Now it is up to the regulators-both at the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice-to determine whether the sales, which represented the minimum bids in the private auction held by NextWave July 8, comply with communications and antitrust law.
Bankruptcy Judge Adlai Hardin Jr. approved the sale July 15, and the court released the order July 19.
Verizon Wireless agreed to pay $930 million for New York, and MetroPCS agreed to pay $43.5 million for two 10-megahertz licenses covering Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla. At the private auction, NextWave withdrew the licenses for Denver; Portland, Ore.; and Tulsa, Okla., which it had originally intended to sell.
The FCC will receive $398 million as part of a settlement between NextWave and the government that sought to clear up all remaining legal issues following NextWave’s tortuous litigation battle with the FCC since filing for bankruptcy June 8, 1998. As part of the settlement, NextWave returned 60 licenses to the FCC and agreed that if it sold other licenses for more than a specific price, it would pay certain sums to the government.
The FCC plans to auction the licenses NextWave returned Jan. 12-five years to the day the government canceled the licenses, a move that was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
NextWave recently sold 34 licenses covering 32 markets to Cingular Wireless L.L.C. for $1.4 billion.
