The US Justice Department has approved the $16.5bn deal for SBC Communications Inc to acquire Pacific Telesis Group Inc. It also approved the purchase by US West Inc for $5.3bn of Continental Cablevision Inc on condition that it sell Boston-based Continental’s 11% stake in Teleport Communications Group Inc since US West competes with New York-based Teleport for business telephone services in four major US cities. The Department is not nearly so certain that it will allow the purchase of Nynex Corp by Bell Atlantic Corp because it suspects that if the two were kept apart, they would compete for local traffic in each other’s BosWash territories.
