Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 16, 1993 TAG: 9311250335
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The court, without comment, turned down arguments by consumer and information groups that the seven ``Baby Bells'' should not have been allowed to enter the lucrative and growing market.
Those groups say the regional Bells' ownership of the phone lines will give them a monopolistic advantage over their competitors.
The regional Bells have been allowed since late 1991 to offer information such as traffic and stock reports, electronic yellow pages and transmission of medical records.
U.S. District Judge Harold Greene reluctantly let the Bells enter the market that year, saying he believed it would harm competition but an appeals court ruling left him no other choice.
Bradley Stillman of the Consumer Federation of America, one of the groups that challenged the regional companies, said he was disappointed by Monday's action.
Now it is up to the Federal Communications Commission and state regulatory authorities to make sure the regional companies do not take unfair advantage of their ownership of the phone lines, Stillman said.
``There aren't enough regulators or auditors in the world to protect against the kind of abuses that are possible,'' he said.
But John Thorne, attorney for Bell Atlantic Corp., said, ``I dare anybody to name a market we've monopolized ... There have been dire predictions about every market we've entered, and we haven't harmed competition in any of them.''
The case stems from the 1982 court-supervised breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph as the result of the federal government's antitrust lawsuit.
The breakup agreement stripped AT&T of its local phone companies and set up the regional Bells, which were barred from providing information services by telephone.
The Justice Department reversed its position in 1987 and backed the Bells' request to start offering such services.
Greene ruled against the regional companies. But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here ordered him to reconsider under a different legal standard. After the Supreme Court let the appeals court ruling stand, Greene reluctantly lifted the ban in July 1991.
In the appeal denied Monday, the consumer and information groups' lawyers said the appeals court ruling gave the Justice Department too much power over judges' decisions on whether to approve legal settlements involving the government.
by CNB