LightSquared Lawyers Up
Last October, aspiring wholesale wireless provider LightSquared threatened litigation if the Federal Communications Commission were to block its network over concerns that it would interfere with a large number of aviation, commercial and consumer GPS devices. And now that the agency has done just that, revoking LightSquared’s conditional permission to operate its network, the company is lawyering up.
The company has hired Ted Olson, former Bush administration solicitor general, and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to help it overcome any regulatory setbacks and salvage its more than $4 billion investment in a new national wireless network.
“We will do all we can to ensure that LightSquared does not lose billions of dollars in investments due to a precipitous, arbitrary reversal by the government,” Olson said in a statement.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean LightSquared will sue, though it’s clearly an option.
“[The FCC’s] decision to not allow us to go forward isn’t supported by the law or technical policy,” Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy, told Bloomberg. “We are confident about that and we are eager to prove our case.”