By Sam Boughedda
Elon Musk's SpaceX has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to deny the ViaSat (NASDAQ:VSAT) deal to acquire Inmarsat.
Viasat is set to buy British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat for $4 billion.
However, SpaceX has now made a filing with the US regulator asking them to deny the deal based on Viasat's, "ongoing willful and unlawful operation of a potentially very large number of U.S. earth stations, including earth stations aboard aircraft, without Commission authorization across one gigahertz of spectrum in the Ka-band."
"This is a blatant violation of the Commission’s rules, causing harm to the operations of others," argued SpaceX in the filing.
SpaceX filed a similar complaint nearly a year ago, with a related request filed almost two years ago.
"Viasat has continued its use of this spectrum in disregard of clear Commission requirements and of the corresponding harm these violations are causing. The public interest is not served by giving a company with such blatant disregard for the Commission’s rules control over the Inmarsat satellite system," added SpaceX.