AT&T forced to pay $2 million for violating court orders in Dobson acquisition
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 15th 2009 3:01PM
posted Jan 15th 2009 3:01PM
You just thought that whole AT&T-Dobson Communications tie up was completely over. Turns out, AT&T is now being asked to pay $2 million as part of a civil settlement for violating a pair of court orders related to the acquisition. According to a petition filed by the Department of Justice, the carrier failed to fulfill its obligations when divesting mobile wireless businesses in three rural service areas (two in Kentucky and one in Oklahoma). In essence, AT&T personnel reportedly obtained "unauthorized access to the divested businesses' competitively sensitive customer information, and in some situations used it to solicit and win away the divested businesses' customers," and it doesn't take a lawyer to understand how sketch that is. Tsk, tsk, AT&T.[Via RCRWireless]
This is also being discussed here: http://howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1484420
Sounds like careless employees and poor management led to this. ATT officials and their employees knew better but chose to carelessly violate FCC imposed mandates.
The intent of the low level employees was not malicious in itself, but the fact that management allowed it to go on reinforces the fact the shady nature of the telecom industry leaders.
Love the graphic.
What did they do, exactly?
Here in the real world, we don't care much for lawyer talk.
@ Cash:
When AT&T acquired Dobson, they were forced to divest a certain amount of customers in areas where they'd hold too much control. The customers in these areas would be assumed by another carrier namely Verizon Wireless, Metro, etc.
What AT&T did was allow these customers to leave without paying the ETF which meant they couldn't be divested. In English, if a customer on the original divestment list has left AT&T, then they can't be divested and the assuming company is cheated of their business.
In some cases, AT&T then went back to the customer they let go ETF free and tried to win them back with special perks. By signing the customer up as a new customer, they wouldn't be required to divest them.
Management allowed this to happen despite being totally illegal. I'm surprised that AT&T is not being sued by the other cariers for this.