Cox Communications Tying Class Action Goes To The Jury

After a near two-week trial in the consumer class action lawsuit against Cox Communications, the jury began deliberations this past Monday to decide whether Cox's alleged practice of tying premium cable services to rentals of its cable boxes violated the Sherman Act by harming competition in the set-top box market.  As we previously reported, Cox's premium services subscribers were not contractually obligated to rent set-top boxes but were required to do so by Cox's internal policies in order to receive the premium services for which they paid.  The premium services at issue, also referred to as "two-way services," include interactive content like video-on-demand, program guides, pay-per-view, and parental controls.