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Antitrust Keyed to Areeda, 8th Ed.
Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP
Citation:
540 U.S. 398, 124 S.Ct. 872, 157 L.Ed.2d 823 (2004)Facts
Verizon Communications Inc. was the incumbent local exchange carrier (LEC) serving New York State, enjoying an exclusive franchise within its local service area before the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The 1996 Act sought to end this monopoly by requiring incumbent LECs to share their networks with competitors. Verizon signed interconnection agreements with rivals like AT&T and received approval from the FCC to enter the long-distance market after demonstrating compliance with the Act’s network-sharing duties. Part of Verizon’s obligation included providing access to operations support systems (OSS), which are essential for competitors to process customer orders. In late 1999, competitive LECs complained that many orders were going unfilled, violating Verizon’s obligation to provide OSS access. This led to investigations by the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) and the FCC, resulting in a consent decree with the FCC (including a $3 million payment) and $10 million in liability to competitive LECs under PSC orders. The Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, an AT&T customer, filed a class action complaint alleging that Verizon had engaged in anticompetitive conduct by providing insufficient assistance to rivals, thereby impairing the ability of AT&T to serve its customers adequately. The complaint sought damages and injunctive relief under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
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