DISH Network Corp. (DISH) responded to news reports regarding the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States or CFIUS review of the proposed SoftBank corp.(SFTBF.PK)-Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) transaction.
The company's executive vice president and general counsel , Stanton Dodge, said that If the news reports are accurate, SoftBank's agreement to an extraordinary board structure and the concerns of CFIUS with respect to the use of Chinese-manufactured equipment on a foreign-controlled Clearwire network, which reportedly could add as much as $1 billion to the cost of the proposed SoftBank-Sprint transaction, confirm the serious national security risks of SoftBank acquiring Sprint and its wireless and wireline assets of national strategic importance.
"We remain concerned, however, that these reported steps do not adequately protect our national security interests, especially with respect to Sprint's critical fiber backbone network and Sprint's extensive contracts to provide important telecommunications services for government, law enforcement and defense customers," said Stanton Dodge, DISH executive vice president and general counsel.
Softbank had agreed in mid-October 2012 to acquire a 70 percent stake in Sprint for about $20.1 billion or nearly 1.57 trillion yen. Meanwhile, Dish Network submitted a $25.5 billion cash and stock takeover bid for Sprint in April, calling its offer superior to that of Softbank.
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