Eric Branfman represents a wide range of telecommunications clients, including competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), rural local exchange providers (RLECs), prepaid calling card providers, data providers, integrated communications providers, broadband providers, fiber and backhaul providers, Internet service providers, wireless carriers, long distance carriers, Internet backbone providers, large users of telecommunications services, and investors.
Eric has participated actively on behalf of new entrants to local exchange markets and has handled hundreds of negotiations and arbitrations for CLECs for interconnection and commercial agreements with incumbent carriers. He has been involved in numerous proceedings before the courts, state regulatory authorities and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding access charges and other forms of inter-carrier compensation and rates and terms and conditions of interconnection as well as large telecommunications mergers and net neutrality issues.
Eric’s national telecommunications practice extends to virtually every facet of a carrier’s operations, including certifications, transfers of control and financing, mergers and acquisitions, pole attachment and conduit occupancy agreements, contract negotiations, operational and billing disputes, litigation in federal and state courts and before the FCC and state public utility commissions, bankruptcies, and legislation. He speaks frequently about the telecommunications industry.
Eric also has extensive experience in civil litigation involving telecommunications, antitrust, major construction projects and a wide range of other business matters in federal and state trial and appellate courts. Favorable recoveries for Eric’s clients now total more than $700 million.
Eric began his career at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where he was legal adviser to former commissioner and later U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole. Subsequently, he was a partner in a leading antitrust firm where he represented large corporate clients on a wide range of antitrust issues. He has remained active in the field of antitrust and has been at the forefront of the application of antitrust laws in telecommunications.
