How Three Telecom Mergers Cleared the FCC in Days, Not Months
Under Chair Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission has linked merger approval to applicants’ disclosures about their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. In 2025, three major media and telecommunications mergers received FCC approval only after the companies involved submitted letters addressing their DEI practices — and the gap between letter submission and approval was measured in single days: one, two, and three, respectively (Outsolve, 2026).
Merger review at the FCC typically involves extended public-interest analysis spanning months, incorporating competition, spectrum, and ownership considerations. A same-week or next-day approval following a DEI-focused submission is therefore procedurally unusual, and the timing pattern itself has become the substance of commentary on this trend — independent of what any individual letter said (Outsolve, 2026). Carr has stated publicly that the Commission might block mergers involving companies seen as promoting DEI, positioning the agency’s merger-review authority as a compliance lever separate from its traditional public-interest mandate (Outsolve, 2026).
This approach sits within a broader 2026 pattern of agencies using licensing, contracting, and procurement authority to pressure DEI changes — the FAR Council’s contract-clause rollout under Executive Order 14398 being a parallel example in the federal contracting space (Fortney Scott, 2026). Corporate governance analysts have described this more broadly as part of a shift toward “increased state involvement in corporate decision-making,” extending beyond the DEI-specific cases into a wider pattern of regulatory conditioning on political and social criteria (European Corporate Governance Institute [ECGI], n.d.).
For organizations operating in FCC-regulated sectors or pursuing mergers requiring federal approval, the practical lesson is that regulatory timelines can now function as a signal independent of formal rulemaking. Legal and government-affairs teams should treat “voluntary” compliance submissions during a pending review as a de facto condition of approval, and should document those submissions carefully, since the underlying legal authority for conditioning merger approval on DEI-program content has not been tested in court in the same way private discrimination claims have (see Brief 1). This is an area where regulatory practice is currently moving faster than binding legal precedent — a gap institutions should monitor rather than assume is settled.
References
European Corporate Governance Institute. (n.d.). Corporate governance reframed: A 2026 outlook. Retrieved August 9, 2026, from https://www.ecgi.global/publications/blog/corporate-governance-reframed-a-2026-outlook
FortneyScott. (2026, April 13). Part III: Trump administration increases DEI pressure. https://www.fortneyscott.com/part-iii-trump-administration-increases-dei-pressure
Outsolve. (2026, April 13). DEI in 2026: Latest developments. https://www.outsolve.com/blog/dei-in-2026-developments