Dish Falsely Crying Poverty in Robocall Suit, Say DOJ, FTC

With $3.5 billion cash on hand, Dish Network undeniably has the ability to pay the $900 million civil penalty requested by the U.S. for illegal telemarketing activities, said the FTC and DOJ in a motion (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Illinois, asking to admit the satellite company's current financial statements. In the motion, the federal agencies -- which along with four states have brought robocall allegations against Dish (see 0903260144) -- pointed to Dish's most-recent quarterly earnings and said those figures are admissible as relevant evidence to the question of Dish's ability to pay the civil penalty since they seem to contradict previous trial testimony by the company. "Dish is either dissembling to the SEC and the public now or it was dissembling to the Court in January," the federal agencies said. Dish didn't comment.