WASHINGTON-Cellular Concepts Inc., one of Cellular One of Washington/Baltimore’s largest dealers in the Washington, D.C., area, filed a lawsuit against the carrier Jan. 29 in Montgomery County (Md.) District Court, asking for $28 million in damages.
The lawsuit in part charges Cellular One with requiring dealers to sign an exclusive contract in 1995 to sell only Cellular One service, with the promise that digital service would be available “soon. When Bell Atlantic Mobile, Sprint Spectrum (L.P.), Nextel (Communications Inc.) and AT&T Wireless (Services Inc.) entered the market with digital service, Cellular Concepts and its president, Robert Qureshi, saw the company’s business drop from 16 outlets to five in the course of a year.”
Rob Mooney, a spokesman for Cellular One, said the company is reviewing the lawsuit and cannot comment on pending litigation. Cellular One is owned by SBC Communications Inc.
Mooney noted that Cellular One has offered digital service in the Washington D.C./Baltimore market since 1994 and that last week’s launch of Digital Edge is an enhancement to existing digital service offerings.
The carrier had announced to The Washington Post in February 1994 that it would have digital service in place that year, but it did not do so until last week, according to the lawsuit.
“Cellular One knew at the time it induced Cellular Concepts to become an exclusive premier dealer that Cellular One had already lost and could no longer compete in the race for technological advantage in the market,” the lawsuit charged. “Cellular One induced Cellular Concepts and other dealers to sign new exclusive premier dealership agreements through material representations, for the ulterior purposes of preventing the dealers from selling competitors’ products and services, and inducing the dealers to develop networks of their own subdealers.”
The lawsuit also charged the carrier with interfering with Cellular Concepts’ contracts with subdealers and with trying to forge direct contracts with them, sometimes offering store managers new employment.
According to Cellular Concepts’ attorney Robert Carter, Cellular One had been promising a digital product since 1995, and talks were ongoing that “the product was coming, the product was coming.” When Cellular One announced its digital service last week, years behind other wireless competitors in this market, the delay was attributed to Southwestern Bell’s not wanting to release a service that did not work.
Qureshi’s lawsuit did not happen overnight; rather, it had been in the works since last summer, when Cellular Concepts “was prepared to declare Cellular One in material default under the agreement;” however, the lawsuit was put on hold when Cellular One told Qureshi that digital service would be delivered that summer.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Carter told RCR. “There is more to come in the next couple of weeks.” No hearing date has been set.
