Provider to pay $19M over harm to LR firm

A federal judge has ordered a competing telecommunications provider to pay nearly $19.2 million to Windstream Holdings Inc. for unfairly trying to poach the Little Rock company’s customers.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain ruled late Thursday that Charter Communications Inc. should pay Windstream for damages caused by Charter’s deceptive advertising that tried to win over Windstream customers when the company first filed for bankruptcy.

Thursday’s order upheld a ruling that Drain issued last year when he found that Charter used illegal advertising to lure Windstream customers and disconnected other Windstream users soon after the company filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2019.

Windstream has since emerged from bankruptcy and today operates as a private company owned primarily by a New York hedge fund, Elliott Management Corp.

The company applauded the order.

“We are gratified that Judge Drain’s ruling means Charter will have to pay a significant price for its egregious false advertising,” said Kristi Moody, executive vice president and general counsel for Windstream. “Charter knew full well what it was doing when it embarked on a dishonest scare-tactic campaign to lure away our customers.”

In the ruling, Drain noted that Charter ran a “literally false and intentionally misleading advertising campaign that wrongfully interfered with [Windstream’s] customer contracts and goodwill.”

The ruling noted that Windstream lost profits from customers who switched, had to pay for advertising to correct Charter’s misleading campaign and had to fund another advertising push to recover market share.