Sen. Tunney still Shining the Light on Antitrust Enforcement

SEN TUNNEY STILL SHINING LIGHT ON ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle 10/6, AUTHOR: Mark Cooper, Consumer Federation of America]
[Commentary] The Tunney Act, a landmark reform to the nation's antitrust laws that poured sunshine on subsequent antitrust investigations, requires the U.S. Department of Justice to obtain judicial approval of any settlement of an antitrust investigation, ensuring that the nation's courts, not backroom political operatives, would oversee antitrust enforcement. In 2004, following a controversial antitrust settlement with Microsoft, Congress tightened the leash on the Department of Justice even further, imposing strict new standards on the judicial review of Department of Justice consent decrees. Last year's merger of AT&T and SBC - previously labeled "unthinkable" by one FCC chairman -- and that of Verizon and MCI sounded alarm bells for consumer advocates, legal experts and the telecommunications industry. Even the FCC, which had relied on the competition among the Bells and their largest competitors in massively scaling back the market-opening provisions of the Telecommunications Act, showed promising initial skepticism. But the Department of Justice quickly gave up the farm, approving the rebirth of Ma Bell's monopoly without requiring the divestiture of a single telephone line, even in areas of expansive geographic market overlap between the merged companies. But the gavel has not yet come down -- fortunately, U.S. Sen. John Tunney's namesake legislation is offering renewed hope of restoring justice to the department that carries its name. In a closely watched proceeding in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the Department of Justice has been trying in vain to squelch a full judicial review of the sweetheart deal it struck with the Bells. The judge assigned to this review as required by the Tunney Act, however, has expressed skepticism over the Department of Justice's deficient pleadings, and has permitted public participation in the proceeding over the strenuous objection of the Department of Justice and its Bell partners. The Department of Justice even sought to dissuade community input by burying the required public notice in a Christmas Eve edition of a single newspaper.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/06/EDGCTLHFN313.DTL&hw=Mark+Cooper&sn=002&sc=954