Opinion ID: 539780
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicability of Section VIII(C)

Text: 18 Except for some BOC petitions regarding information services, the BOCs and the DOJ brought, and the district court analyzed, all of the motions to lift the line of business restriction under the standard set out in section VIII(C) of the decree. It is unclear to us, however, that section VIII(C) applies at all to some of those motions. In the first place, section VIII(C) refers to a showing by the petitioning BOC, and thus on its face contemplates only petitions brought by BOCs. The DOJ's hard-line position in favor of the restrictions in 1982 further indicates that when the parties agreed to the decree, none of them contemplated that the DOJ would seek to invoke section VIII(C). We do not see, therefore, how the DOJ can petition for removal of restrictions under section VIII(C). 11 That is not to suggest that if section VIII(C) is not available to the DOJ no avenue for requesting modification would be open to it. Section VII explicitly provides for modifications of the decree, and the district court would possess equitable power to modify the decree even if section VII were not included, see United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 114-15, 52 S.Ct. 460, 462-63, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932). 12 Furthermore, as a party to the decree, the DOJ's position on any BOC petition would be considered by the district court in much the same way as is an intervenor's views--whether it supports or opposes the petition. Strictly speaking, however, only the BOCs can be petitioners under section VIII(C). 19 We also believe that section VIII(C) does not apply to proposed modifications that are agreed to by all the parties to the decree, such as the motions for removal of the restrictions on BOC entry into the information services field. Section VIII(C) speaks of a showing by the petitioning BOC, thereby indicating that it applies only to contested motions for removal--and this reading comports with the intent of the parties as expressed to the district court in 1982. See infra Part III.C.1. As we explain more fully in Part III of this opinion, uncontested motions for modification--those involving the information services and non-telecommunications businesses restrictions--should be treated by the district judge under section VII of the decree, and should be approved so long as the modifications satisfy the public interest standard embodied in the Tunney Act. Thus, while both the district judge and the parties treated the removal of the line of business restrictions as though it were governed entirely by section VIII(C), that section was really the appropriate standard only for the BOC petitions for removal of the manufacturing and interexchange restrictions--the former opposed by AT & T and the latter by both AT & T and the DOJ.