After the media got ahold of the story of AT&T suing a small business owner over $900,000 worth of fraudulent phone calls, for a total of $1.15 million including fees, it seems the telecom giant is willing to back down. The company issued a statement saying it will abandon the lawsuit against the president of the small manufacturing firm. There’s one condition, claims the man — he must drop his countersuit as well.

“We’re sympathetic to the situation and under these circumstances we’ve decided to not pursue the claims,” the company said in a statement, without responding to the man’s claim that he would have to drop his suit.

He’s suing the company for trying to make him pay for calls to Somalia that he says they know he didn’t make, but were the result of phone hackers dialing in to his business’ system.

“What the AT&T media statement said and what they told our attorney is not the same,” the man said, according to the Boston Globe. “They’re willing to drop the claim if we drop ours.”

His lawyer said in a statement that it’s not as easy as just dropping everything, in light of the ordeal her client has been through. He has spent around $30,000 already on legal fees and was worried he’d have to fire his 14 employees.

“This has been a long, expensive, and frightening process for my client,” his attorney said, “and he needs time to consider AT&T’s offer.”

*Thanks for the tip, Jon!

AT&T may drop suit vs. small Ipswich company [Boston Globe]

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