U.S. Government exempt from Early Termination Fees

It seems there are some benefits to working for the man. In 2004, a company then known simply as Nextel began investigating whether they could assess ETF’s to government contracts that ended before their pre-determined termination date. At the time, Nextel’s VP of marketing issued a public statement hypothesizing that “the government will never, never accept such penalty amounts”. Uh, ok. After a lengthy process, Sprint-Nextel has now, according to the Associated Press, “ultimately decided against charging the fees to the government even though it charges the same fees to consumers and businesses.” Great. No justification for the selective treatment was given, but perhaps Sprint executives now enjoy diplomatic immunity in the Baltic region. No word on whether other telecom companies harbor similarly shady policies, but we wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case across the board. 

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