American Tower CEO: 'We Feel Good' About Collecting From Dish
Dish Network's assertions that it was excused from making payments on its master lease agreement because of its plan to sell spectrum prompted American Tower to sue, CEO Steven Vondran said. The preemptive lawsuit against Dish "is to make sure that there's no interruption" in its lease payments, he said in a call Tuesday with analysts. American Tower's agreement with Dish, which runs through 2036, represents about 4% of the company's U.S. and Canada property revenue. "We feel good about our contract [and] the collectability on it," Vondran said.
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American Tower's complaint, filed last week in the U.S. District Court for Colorado (docket 1:25-cv-3311), argued that Dish is engaged in "contrived efforts to evade its clear and undisputed contractual obligations ... to make payments for the use of cell tower facilities that it leases from American Tower to operate its Boost Mobile wireless communications business." American Tower said it received a notice from Dish on Sept. 24 in which Dish said it was excluded from its tower lease contractual obligations because the FCC had forced parent EchoStar to sell its spectrum licenses to resolve an agency inquiry into the underutilization of those licenses. Dollar amounts of payments were redacted in the complaint. American Tower asked the court for a declaration that Dish hasn't been recused from its American Tower agreement and that the terms of the agreement remain in effect.