A four-hour preliminary hearing in a US district courtroom was held at the end of last week.
The case centres around Cingular’s sponsorship of the No.31 Chevrolet owned by Richard Childress Racing. It signed its deal before Nextel became the series’ title sponsor in 2003. As a result, it was one of the few rival telecom companies to be given permission to continue to have its branding in the series.
But Cingular’s parent company, Bell South, has subsequently been taken over by AT&T – one of Nextel’s arch business rivals.
And when AT&T said it was phasing out the Cingular brand and replacing it with its own, Nextel took legal steps.
What the court now needs to decide is where AT&T is using the sponsorship to ambush Nextel’s exclusivity – or is Nextel simply trying to force out a rival?
A decision is expected to made shortly after the deadline.
