Opinion ID: 6930056
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Philadelphia Order

Text: TDS claims standing to challenge the order based on injuries suffered by its subsidiary Vineland Cellular Telephone Co. Vineland owns a cellular system in Vineland, New Jersey, that borders on systems in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and Wilmington, Delaware. Comcast, Amcell’s parent company, operates the Wilmington system and, if TDS’s allegations are credited, the Atlantic City system as well. TDS claims that the transfer of the Philadelphia system from Metromedia Co. to Comcast injured Vineland in two ways. First, Vineland competes with the surrounding systems for customers and would suffer increased competition should those systems be consolidated under common ownership. Second, TDS alleges that Vine-land is dependent on “roaming” revenues from the contiguous systems, 2 and if the contiguous systems pass under Comcast’s control the combined market power of those systems could be used to force Vineland to lower the rates it charges to roamers. The first claim is not fairly traceable to the Commission’s action. Vineland suffered competition from the contiguous systems before and after the transfer from Metromedia to Comcast; TDS has not given us any concrete reason to suppose that the transfer would likely increase the pressures on Vineland. See California Ass’n of the Physically Handicapped, Inc. v. FCC, 778 F.2d 823, 827 (D.C.Cir.1985) (denying standing to challenge transfer of ownership when injury alleged “occurred before, existed at the time of, and continued unchanged after the challenged Commission action”); America West Airlines, Inc. v. Burnley, 838 F.2d 1343, 1344-45 (D.C.Cir.1988) (per curiam) (airline aggrieved by merger of two competitors lacked standing to challenge agency approval of merger). The second allegation of injury amounts to nothing more than “unadorned speculation.” Simon, 426 U.S. at 44, 96 S.Ct. at 1927. The sort of concerted anticompetitive action by Comcast subsidiaries that TDS fears might present a risk of antitrust liability. The claim that Commission approval of the Philadelphia transfer encouraged anticompetitive collusion invites us “to presume illegal activities” on the part of actors not before the court, United Transp. Union v. ICC, 891 F.2d 908, 914 (D.C.Cir.1989), cert. denied, 497 U.S. 1024, 110 S.Ct. 3271, 111 L.Ed.2d 781 (1990), and is unpersuasive for that reason. See id. at 913-15. Cf. International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, 722 F.2d at 811 (possibility that third parties may violate the law is too speculative to defeat standing). 3 We hold that TDS lacks standing to challenge the Philadelphia order.