Until last month, only diehard antitrust experts knew much about Trinko vs. Bell Atlantic, an obscure antitrust case that had reached the 2nd Circuit Court in New York. Back in March 2000, the former Bell Atlantic encountered problems with one of its operations support systems that accepted orders from competitors. The Federal Communications Commission issued a consent decree in which Bell Atlantic agreed to pay $10 million in compensation to affected competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). One day later, however, attorney Curtis Trinko, a customer of AT&T, filed a lawsuit against the Bell on behalf of AT&T consumers, claiming that it was harming customers by denying AT&T access to Bell Atlantic's network.
展开▼
