Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Telecommunications Mergers
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol
Blogger guru and Dean of the law school Jim Chen of the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law has authored a forthcoming chapter on Telecommunications Mergers.
ABSTRACT: Telecommunications mergers are at once a
historical mirror and a harbinger of the legal future. Since the
passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, no significant
telecommunications merger has failed to receive regulatory approval in
the United States.
The
Telecommunications Act of 1996 has accelerated the trend toward
consolidation and concentration. Having devoted most of its energy on
issues doomed to become technologically and economically obsolete, the
Act failed to anticipate the technological conditions (especially the
emergence of the Internet) that drove telecommunications carriers to
consolidate. Nevertheless, possible avenues for reform remain open
should the federal government ever conclude that the anticompetitive
potential of telecommunications mergers outweighs their salutary
effects.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/antitrustprof_blog/2008/06/telecommunicati.html