Ken Lay was the only energy executive to meet privately with Vice President Dick Cheney to help shape the administration's new energy policy -- which included a recommendation to break up monopoly control of electricity transmission networks, a longtime Enron goal.

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So if after a year, say, no new entrant had appeared to challenge Microsoft's monopoly, the break-up option would need to be revived.

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Deutsche Telekom, the former telephone monopoly, owns the network but is being forced to break it up and sell it.

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