Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Mergers Update
U.S. federal regulators are nearing approval of two deals that would reshape the telephone industry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. They are in negotiations over likely divestitures to preserve competition, especially in the market for corporate customers, the newspaper said... FCC votes on the deals could come as early as the agency's October 12 meeting, the Journal said. At the same time, Justice Department investigators have concluded that the merging companies must sell some assets, moves they believe are needed to preserve competition for high-volume business customers, the Journal quoted lawyers close to the government review as saying. Anti-trust enforcers are negotiating with SBC and Verizon on the scope of those divestitures, the lawyers said, according to the newspaper. That is a concern for SBC and Verizon, since a major goal of their acquisitions was to acquire lucrative corporate customers in order to sell more packages of telecom services. As a result of both the FCC and Justice Department reviews, regulators are concerned that consolidation will make it harder for business customers to get discounts on telecoms services, the Journal said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment