AT&T hit with 8 million dollar verdict.

Last week the Ingham County Circuit Court in Michigan entered a judgment ordering AT&T Michigan to pay ACD Telecom $7,994,590 in damages for breach of contract.

Under the contract, ACD and AT&T had mutually agreed to let their customers under long-term contracts switch their services to the other company without having to pay the early termination fees in their contracts. Most commercial telecommunication services are purchased on term contracts with substantial termination penalties, much like a consumer cell phone contract. This makes it difficult and expensive to switch phone companies when new technology, lower prices or better services become available.

ACD says AT&T refused to honor the agreement and charged two of the customers that switched from AT&T to ACD early termination penalties in excess of $40,000 each.

AT&T then sued these two companies to collect early termination penalties. One of the two companies, Lansing-based ARQ Internet, went out of business in the face of the termination charges AT&T assessed in breach of the contract.

Read the whole story here.

Supreme Court to hear arguments over UA dorm construction records

LITTLE ROCK – A case before the state Supreme Court seeking records from a construction company that built a $35 million dormitory at the University of Arkansas is part of a contractor advocacy group’s effort to change state law concerning contracts for high-dollar building projects, the group’s president said Tuesday.

The high court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Thursday in Conway-based Nabholz Construction Co.’s appeal of a Pulaski County circuit judge’s order to turn over to the Contractors for Public Protection Association some of company records related to the construction of the Northwest Quadrant Housing Project on the Fayetteville campus.

Nabholz attorney Jeff Miller said Tuesday he would argue that the privately owned company should not have to make its records public.

Nabholz, which got the state contract without going through a competitive bidding process under a 2001 law, earned about $1.3 million and received another $2.5 million in overhead expenses on the project.

David Gatzke, president of Contractors for Public Protection Association, said Tuesday the organization’s lawsuit centers on the $2.5 million in overhead expenses Nabholz received. The association took the company to court after it refused to release records of the expenses under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Ron Hope, attorney for the association, said the records are public under a provision of the FOIA that has been interpreted by the courts to extend to private companies that perform public functions.

Read entire story here.