Judge Says Dish Properly Withdrew Bid for LightSquared

Dish Networks had made a $2.2 billion bid for LightSquared’s wireless spectrum assets and a bankruptcy judge on Wednesday said the company properly withdrew its bid despite LightSquared lenders’ complaints. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Judge Shelley C. Chapman of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan said that while Dish never officially filed paperwork withdrawing the offer, its termination of an agreement with those lenders based on the bid was sufficient. ‘It was permissible for LBAC to withdraw the bid,’ said Judge Chapman, referring to the Dish subsidiary that made the offer for LightSquared.” Judge Chapman told Dish lawyer, Rachel Strickland, that she should have made a filing notifying the lenders that the offer was off the table, not just the agreement. “The lenders, a group of hedge funds that had presented a restructuring plan for LightSquared based on the Dish bid, argued that the absence of an official withdrawal of the bid binds Dish to the deal. White & Case LLP’s Thomas E. Lauria, a lawyer for the hedge funds, said it was ‘incomprehensible’ that Dish was walking away,” The Wall Street Journal reported. The FCC said it was unsure if it would approve LightSquared’s network by the end of 2014. Both the abandoned Dish sale and LightSquared plans would pay off the holders of more than $1.8 billion in LightSquared bank debt, a group that includes a vehicle controlled by Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen, as well as the hedge funds trying to push the Dish deal through. (Source: The Wall Street Journal) It’s not clear if Dish has walked away from this deal for good or if they’ll return to LightSquared with another offer for the spectrum.