"The best informed D.C. folks believe the fix is in, and McDowell will suddenly discover that his conflict of interest has suddenly disappeared so he can pass the deal - Ethics be dashed," he writes.

said by ropeguru :

Whether or not it is ethincs on McDowell or Martin, it is still an ethics issue in my opinion.

said by qdemn7 :

Guess I'm missing something. What exactly IS the ethics issue?

said by ropeguru :

The fact that McDowell used to be on the telecom payroll and his opinion and vote would be biased towards approving for finanacial gain.

McDowell has been acting as if recused from FCC deliberations on the largest telecommunications transaction in U.S. history -- on the grounds that he previously was an attorney and lobbyist for CompTel, an industry association representing Bell company competitors.

said by T1 Rocky :

Re: Not up to McDowell; the General Counsel is the key

I don't follow - what is General Counsel?

Also, when they are saying the fix is in, what are they referring to? This article is a little vague....

said by T1 Rocky :

There's no way Whitacre is going to let this merger fall through in my opinion. He's personally spent the last 11 years undoing the telecom Act of 96 piece by piece and now are we to believe he's willing to walk away when there's only 3 companies left?

When the merger is complete (and whitacre will make sure that it gets done) the loser is going to be the consumer.

Actually, it is just the opposite. He represented a CLEC association before the FCC and argued for conditions to a merger. And that is why he excused himself from the AT&T/BS merger case. That would seem to indicate he would be against an AT&T merger without conditions.