Beginning in 1998, Comcast Corp. undertook a strategy to increase its share of the market for cable services in the Philadelphia area. It bought out smaller competitors and then made a series of “swap” contracts with AT&T Inc., Time Warner Cable Inc. and other cable providers. The contracts allowed Comcast to consolidate its dominance in the Philadelphia area by trading cable systems it owned outside of Philadelphia for cable systems that competitors owned within the Philadelphia area. By 2002, Comcast customers accounted for more than 77 percent of cable subscribers in the Philadelphia area.
According to attorneys representing a class of approximately 2.2 million subscribers and former subscribers to Comcast cable services, those “swap” deals suppressed competition and raised prices for consumers in the Philadelphia area in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
