No 'rubber stamp' on telecom mergers, judge says

NO RUBBER STAMP ON TELECOM MERGERS, JUDGE SAYS
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday continued to press the Department of Justice to explain why he should approve twin mergers involving some of the nation's largest telephone companies, but did not say when he will make a final decision. He warned multiple times that he has no intention of "rubber-stamping" the mergers -- proposed between AT&T-SBC Communications and Verizon-MCI -- and plans to issue an opinion only after an "independent review" of the materials presented to him. He said that "it remains to be seen whether the record is complete yet" and questioned whether the government was withholding "significant documents." Justice Department attorney Claude Scott replied that the government had submitted to the court a "fair representation" of the thousands of documents and interviews they had gathered while vetting the deals. Attorneys for the government and the telephone companies continued to assert that the deals would not stifle competition or harm consumers. The merger agreements had already been modified in an attempt to ensure the companies' competitors could gain access to fiber optic connections in certain commercial buildings where Verizon and MCI or AT&T and SBC had been the only two companies supplying "last-mile" connections, leaving no immediate competition after the merger.
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