Vivendi claims fraud against T-Mobile USA’s AWS spectrum acquisition

French media-telecom conglomerate Vivendi S.A. sharpened its charges against T-Mobile USA Inc. and its global affiliate, alleging corporate corruption helped the No. 4 U.S. mobile phone operator bid successfully on $4 billion worth of advanced wireless services licenses to support the build-out of 3G systems in the United States.
In its amended complaint, filed in federal court in Washington state under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, Vivendi claims T-Mobile illegally appropriated Vivendi’s $2.5 billion investment in one of Poland’s leading mobile telecommunications operators, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa, through a pattern of fraud and racketeering.
The revised lawsuit claims “defendants’ corrupt operation of the T-Mobile global network involved acts of wire fraud including but not limited to defendants’ fraudulent inclusion of PTC’s assets on T-Mobile’s consolidated balance sheet to, upon information and belief, put T-Mobile in a stronger position to support a $4.182 billion bid and purchase in a 2006 Federal Communications Commission auction of advanced wireless services spectrum for the benefit of T-Mobile USA Inc. and to leverage and raise capital to support other commercial and banking transactions in U.S. commerce.”
“We believe Vivendi’s lawsuit in Seattle lacks merit and we will respond in court appropriately,” said Michael Lange, a spokesman for Deutsche Telekom AG. German telecom giant DT is the parent company of T-Mobile USA.