Dish Wireless Bankruptcy Pause to Continue
Dish DBS, another EchoStar subsidiary, emerged from bankruptcy last week after shedding $4.3 million in debt
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5, 2026 – Litigation of Dish Wireless’s bankruptcy will be paused again so the company can attempt mediation with former business partners, a judge ruled Friday.
The case, already on hold since Sept. 14 to give the two sides a breather to negotiate, will remain on ice until Nov. 4.
This time, Dish and its creditors will enter into mediation, with a third party overseeing negotiations and pushing each side to reach a deal.
The EchoStar subsidiary’s bankruptcy has been contentious. Three national tower companies say they’re owed billions in unpaid rent, and Dish thinks it can emerge from bankruptcy while paying them a fraction of that, or potentially nothing at all.
Attorneys for the tower companies — Crown Castle, American Tower, and SBA Communications — and other creditors said the two sides made some progress on what a general plan might look like, but that Dish had not engaged on the central issue of who was going to be owed what. Lawyers were able to schedule a single meeting on the issue over the initial two-week pause.
Kyle Kimpler, an attorney representing Crown Castle, had initially opposed mediation, but said Friday it would be necessary to force both sides to try for an agreement.
“I thought the parties could get together and at least see if we were in striking distance without the help of a mediator,” he said. “I was wrong. I think we need a mediator.”
If the companies ultimately can’t come to a deal, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez will have to resolve a number of issues in addition to how much the towers should be owed.
Dish maintains it owed $8 billion to another EchoStar subsidiary, but the towers think that was improperly put on the books and should not be paid out. Dish is also running out of money, and attorneys for the company said it would need money from EchoStar if it were to continue litigating against its creditors.
Additionally, the towers and other creditors had previously asked Lopez to disqualify Dish’s law firm, White & Case, claiming it was acting on behalf of EchoStar and its chairman Charlie Ergen, rather than faithfully administering Dish’s estate. Dish has denied this.
Anton Gorbounov, a senior debt analyst at Octus, said in a recent interview that it was rare for a law firm to be disqualified in bankruptcy cases.
“I think it’s just a sign of the fact that this is a nasty one,” he said. “There was enough acrimony here to add that to the list of things to litigate.”
Dish DBS
Meanwhile, Dish DBS, another EchoStar subsidiary, emerged from bankruptcy Thursday, having shed more than $4.3 billion in debt.
The DBS bankruptcy plan had been mostly approved by creditors in advance of its filing. Dish Wireless and Dish DBS had initially filed for bankruptcy together in June, but they split their cases when it became clear that Dish Wireless would drag out.
Dish DBS houses EchoStar’s Dish Network and Sling TV businesses. In the second quarter of 2026, they lost a combined 241,000 subscribers, to end with nearly 6.4 million.
