## Facts

- Verizon was the incumbent local exchange carrier in New York and, under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, had duties to share network elements with competing carriers on an unbundled basis.
- Verizon entered regulator-approved interconnection agreements requiring it to provide competitors access to its operations support systems (OSS), needed to process customer orders.
- Competing carriers complained that Verizon provided inadequate or discriminatory OSS access; state and federal regulators investigated and imposed penalties, remediation measures, and reporting requirements.
- A customer of a competing carrier (AT&T) sued Verizon in a putative class action, alleging Verizon’s discriminatory network-access practices harmed competition and constituted monopolization or attempted monopolization under Sherman Act § 2.

## Issues

1. Whether alleged breach of the Telecommunications Act’s network-sharing duties, without more, states a monopolization or attempted monopolization claim under Sherman Act § 2.
2. Whether § 2 refusal-to-deal doctrine, including the limited exception reflected in Aspen Skiing, applies where the challenged “dealing” is compelled by statute and governed by a detailed regulatory regime.
3. Whether antitrust law should impose additional access duties (including under an “essential facilities” theory) when sector-specific regulators already oversee and remedy access violations.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit and held the complaint failed to state a claim under Sherman Act § 2.
- The Telecommunications Act’s saving clause preserved only those antitrust claims that satisfy established antitrust standards; it did not create new § 2 duties beyond existing doctrine.
- The allegations described deficient assistance to rivals in performing statutorily required access obligations, not exclusionary conduct recognized as actionable under existing § 2 precedent.
- The Court declined to recognize or extend the essential facilities doctrine, and in any event found the regulatory access regime an additional reason not to impose antitrust liability.
- A concurrence agreed the claim failed on these facts, emphasizing the significance of the regulatory setting while leaving open that some refusals to deal could be actionable in different circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- A firm generally has no antitrust duty to deal with or assist competitors; § 2 refusal-to-deal liability is a narrow exception.
- Aspen Skiing reflects a limited category of actionable conduct involving termination of a prior, voluntary, profitable course of dealing suggesting a sacrifice of short-run profits to harm competition; statutory compulsion and comprehensive regulation weaken any Aspen analogy.
- A statutory saving clause preserving antitrust law maintains existing standards rather than expanding them through the regulatory statute’s duties.
- Where a detailed sector-specific regime mandates access and provides enforcement tools, overlaying antitrust remedies for the same access failures risks error costs and deterrence of legitimate competitive behavior.
- The Supreme Court did not recognize the essential facilities doctrine and refused to extend it to impose access duties beyond those already required by regulation.

## Conclusion

The Court held that alleged violations of telecom network-sharing duties, already governed and enforced through a detailed regulatory structure, did not constitute exclusionary conduct actionable under Sherman Act § 2, and it declined to expand refusal-to-deal or essential-facilities theories to transform regulatory breaches into antitrust claims.


Verizon Commc’ns Inc. v. L. Offs. of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 540 U.S. 398 (2004)