Abstract
During the past 30 years, many regulatory commissions have abandoned their traditional hostility to customized rate and service contracts between regulated carriers or public utilities and individual customers. In 2002, the U. S. Postal Rate Commission (“PRC”) joined this trend, announcing that the PRC would look favorably on Negotiated Service Agreements (“NSAs”) between the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) and individual mailers. To date, however, the NSA mechanism has failed to live up to its potential. In contrast to the flourishing of customized contracts in other industries, only four NSAs with USPS have received regulatory approval in the past three years.
Levy and Leong have represented Bank One and several other mailers in negotiating and litigating proposed NSAs. Buc has served as an expert for mailer proponents of NSAs. Plunkett has been the lead negotiator for the USPS in all NSAs proposed to date. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the USPS, Sidley, SLS, Bank One, or any other client of Sidley or SLS.
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Levy, D.M., Leong, J.M., Buc, L.G., Plunkett, M.K. (2006). Benefit-Cost Regulation of Negotiated Service Agreements. In: Crew, M.A., Kleindorfer, P.R. (eds) Progress toward Liberalization of the Postal and Delivery Sector. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, vol 49. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-29744-6_20
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