Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nextel DOJ Investigation could result in breaking up their market dominance-

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 07:37:45 -0500

Nextel DOJ Investigation could result in breaking up their market
dominance-
Motorola, Nextel turn to big legal guns in U.S. probe
February 28, 2004
BY DANA CIMILLUCA

Motorola Inc. and Nextel Communications Inc., facing a government
investigation into a push-to-talk wireless phone service they dominate,
have hired some of the biggest guns in antitrust law in America.

Motorola retained James Halverson, a partner at Washington-based Steptoe
& Johnson, people familiar with the tactic said. Nextel hired Kevin
Arquit, a partner at New York-based Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Arquit and Halverson are former directors of the Federal Trade
Commission's competition bureau.

Arquit, who represented MasterCard International Inc. in a $3 billion
antitrust case, and Halverson, a former chairman of the antitrust law
section of the American Bar Association, will help Nextel and Motorola
field requests from the Justice Department. The agency wants information
in a probe of possible antitrust activity in the walkie-talkie phone
market, where Motorola supplies the phones to Nextel.

''The investigation could result in breaking up their market
dominance,'' said Martin Zohn, an attorney at Proskauer Rose in Los
Angeles who specializes in litigation for companies including media and
phone providers. ''Any company in America that received this request
would hire strong counsel.''

Nextel became the fastest growing nationwide U.S. wireless carrier by
introducing with Motorola a service that enables construction crews,
public-safety teams and other people to talk at the push of a button
rather than by dialing a number. Virginia-based Nextel has the lowest
monthly rate of customer defections, 1.5 percent, of any major carrier
in part because of the loyalty of push-to-talk users.

Arquit declined to comment, as did Nextel spokeswoman Audrey Schaefer
and Gina Talamona of the Justice Department. Halverson didn't return a
call seeking comment.

''We don't comment on specific investigations, but we cooperate with
proper requests for information from government agencies,'' said Bill
Parke, a Motorola spokesman.

New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless has also received a request for
information from the Justice Department. Verizon Wireless, which
introduced a competing push-to-talk product last year, has said it isn't
the subject of the investigation.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/cst-fin-mot28.html
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