Baby Bell Antitrust Suit Halted

The U.S. Supreme Court has halted an antirust lawsuit against the regional Bell companies on Monday, saying the case needed specific allegations in order to continue.

A class action suit alleged that the companies had a pact not to compete with one another and offer service in their own territories. However, the case was light on facts and evidence, and by a 7-2 vote, the judges reversed an earlier appeals court ruling that let it go forward.

The original lawsuit was aimed at Bell Atlantic, which served customers in the Mid-Atlantic states before its merger with GTE-created Verizon. Some believe that even though legislation required the companies open up their networks, they still had agreements not to compete with one another.

The justices said the allegations of a conspiracy were "bare-bones" at best, and ruled that any charges against the Bells should be dropped unless the plaintiffs could come up with more evidence to back their claims.

Verizon and the Bells also had the Justice Department's support, which said the fact that the companies had run parallel businesses and had not competed with each other was not enough to launch an antirust suit.

"The Supreme Court's decision embraces an important principle about protecting the freedom of firms to make unilateral decisions on what markets to enter or not enter," Verizon said in a statement.

Dissenting from the majority opinion were Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two of the courts more "liberal" judges.