WASHINGTON(AP)-Federal antitrust regulators want information about Cisco Systems Inc. meetings with two other high-tech companies as they investigate whether Cisco illegally tried to divide the lucrative market for Internet hardware.
Cisco, an $8.5 billion company that makes high-end networking equipment, acknowledged last Monday receiving a letter from the Federal Trade Commission inquiring about its conversations with Lucent Technologies Inc. and Nortel Networks.
Cisco promised to “cooperate fully” and noted the meetings “were openly discussed and well publicized over the last 12 months in several industry forums and many press reports.”
“We view this inquiry as a preliminary and routine matter,” Cisco spokesman Tom Galvin said. “These discussions are not a review of Cisco business practices as a company, but instead a review of talks that ended more than six months ago.”
A spokesman for Lucent, Bill Price, confirmed the FTC was interested in Cisco’s talks with Lucent, and said that the FTC specified Lucent was not a target of the probe. Nortel declined comment.
