Text Message Advertisers Must Arbitrate §1, §2 Claims Against Carriers, Aggregators

Lessees of common short codes must arbitrate their claims that five major mobile carriers, a trade association, and numerous aggregators restrained trade in and monopolized the market for application-to-person text message transmission, according to a Sept. 16 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (In re A2P SMS Antitrust Litigation, S.D.N.Y., 1:12-cv-02656-AJN, 9/16/13).

Club Texting, Inc., iSpeedbuy LLC, and TextPower, Inc. brought suit against five of the six largest mobile carriers in the U.S.—namely, AT&T Mobility LLC, Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile USA, Inc., and U.S. Cellular Corp.—as ...