Judge Dismisses Antitrust Suits Over Handset Sales

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- A federal judge in Manhattan has dismissed a series of consolidated antitrust lawsuits that claimed the nation's largest wireless carriers inappropriately forced customers to buy approved cellular telephones to be able to subscribe to their services.

In the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote earlier this week threw out the lawsuits, saying in part that the plaintiffs failed to prove that any one defendant has the degree of market power necessary to sustain an unlawful tying between handset sales and wireless services or to show that any of the defendants' alleged tying arrangements had an adverse effect on competition in the U.S. market for wireless handsets.

The defendants included units of Cingular Wireless, Verizon Communications Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA.

None of the defendants manufactures wireless handsets, but each purchases them for direct resale to consumers through retail stores or sales agents.

-By Chad Bray, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-227-2017; chad.bray@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires"

Posted to the site on 31st August 2005