Judge Explores Why Telco Mergers Were Allowed

A few weeks ago we noted that famous anti-trust lawyer Gary Reback was pushing the courts to look into whether or not the big telcos broke the law in getting their various mergers approved. It appears those efforts have paid off. Federal District Judge Emmet Sullivan has now asked the Department of Justice for more info, noting that to his untrained eyes, the mergers definitely seem harmful to competition and the market -- so he'd like some more info on why they were approved. This could certainly get interesting pretty quickly. While it seems unlikely that he'd be able to turn back the clock and break up the mergers, it could lead to additional restrictions on the companies. Unfortunately, that might be the worst of both worlds, with the companies merged, but with the government (or the courts) trying to come up with the best way to create competition.