WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - AT&T Inc has agreed to pay more than $2 million for mishandling a divestiture of cellular telephone business in three rural areas that was required as a condition of buying Dobson Communications, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
The department said AT&T failed to secure the customer records of the units to be divested, with the result that AT&T personnel used the information to win away their customers.
'The petition further alleges that AT&T, without authorization by the management trustee, waived early termination fees for several customers of the divested businesses to facilitate switching their wireless service from the divested businesses to AT&T,' the department said in a statement.
AT&T agreed to pay $2,050,000 to settle the civil charges, according to court papers.
AT&T said in a statement that it was happy to have the matter resolved.
'We take seriously our obligation to comply with consent decrees,' said Marty Richter, a spokesman for AT&T. 'As noted in the stipulation, there is no admission or determination of wrongdoing. We felt it was in the best interest of everyone to simply put this matter behind us.'
The AT&T deal to buy Dobson was announced in June 2007 and was completed in November 2007. The deal was worth $2.8 billion.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Andre Grenon, Bernard Orr) Keywords: ATT DOBSON/ANTITRUST (Diane.Bartz@ThomsonReuters.com +1 202 898 8313) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
The department said AT&T failed to secure the customer records of the units to be divested, with the result that AT&T personnel used the information to win away their customers.
'The petition further alleges that AT&T, without authorization by the management trustee, waived early termination fees for several customers of the divested businesses to facilitate switching their wireless service from the divested businesses to AT&T,' the department said in a statement.
AT&T agreed to pay $2,050,000 to settle the civil charges, according to court papers.
AT&T said in a statement that it was happy to have the matter resolved.
'We take seriously our obligation to comply with consent decrees,' said Marty Richter, a spokesman for AT&T. 'As noted in the stipulation, there is no admission or determination of wrongdoing. We felt it was in the best interest of everyone to simply put this matter behind us.'
The AT&T deal to buy Dobson was announced in June 2007 and was completed in November 2007. The deal was worth $2.8 billion.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Andre Grenon, Bernard Orr) Keywords: ATT DOBSON/ANTITRUST (Diane.Bartz@ThomsonReuters.com +1 202 898 8313) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.