Anne Bingaman, the government’s antitrust czar who reviewed huge telecommunications mergers and took on computer software giant Microsoft Inc., said she will leave the Clinton administration later this year.
“The time seems right for me to tell you and the president that I have decided, for purely personal reasons, that I will resign as assistant attorney general for antitrust,” said Bingaman in an Aug. 1 letter to Attorney General Janet Reno.
No names have been mentioned as candidates to replace Bingaman.
Lively and animated, the 53-year-old Bingaman has been an activist on the antitrust front. She forced AT&T Corp. and McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. to restructure their $11.5 billion deal, and required Nextel Communications Inc. to forgo 900 MHz specialized mobile radio licenses before she would agree to let the firm buy Motorola Inc.’s 800 MHz dispatch radio properties.
Aside from her battle with Microsoft, Bingaman’s most controversial action was to hold AirTouch Communications Inc. to 1982 AT&T consent decree restrictions imposed on the seven regional Bell telephone companies. Bingaman ruled that under the law AirTouch was a successor of Pacific Telesis Group, which spun off its cellular and paging properties to create AirTouch in April 1994.
Bingaman, wife of Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), is reportedly headed back to practice law in the private sector.
“Under her leadership, the (antitrust) division has become a critical force in assuring that competition works and businessmen know the rules of the road,” said Robert Pitofsky, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.
