NTT COMMUNICATIONS AND VERIO ANNOUNCE SECURITY CLEARANCE FOR $5.5B MERGER.

NTT Communications Corporation and Verio Inc. (NASDAQ: VRIO) announced that the President of the United States has decided to take no action to suspend or prohibit the acquisition of Verio by NTT Communications.

As previously covered in EDP WEEKLY (Aug 21, 2000), NTT Communications and Verio had been advised by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that, following completion of an investigation under the Defense Production Act of 1950 of the transactions contemplated by the merger agreement, the members of CFIUS had voted to recommend that the President take no action to suspend or prohibit the proposed transaction. On August 23, 2000 it was announced that the President has followed this recommendation.

The primary concern of the investigation was the potential for the acquisition of classified information by the Japanese government, which is the largest shareholder in NTT. This would apparently include circumstances in which U.S. agencies use the INTERNET for intelligence gathering activities. Presumably the security concerns were alleviated with the establishment of "firewalls" within Verio so that classified information would not be available to its foreign ownership. The decision headed off a potential World Trade Organization dispute.

NTT Communications, is a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, and provides long distance and international telecommunications reaching to over 200 countries worldwide. Headquartered in Tokyo, NTT Communications' Arcstar services operate in about 50 countries and have a significant presence in Asia Pacific, North America and Europe. Arcstar global services provides managed data, multimedia and Internet services to some of the largest companies in the world. NTT Communications' investment in its Managed Services, IP Infrastructure and Internet Portal is designed to meet the growing demand for electronic commerce-based services from its business customers and home users. NTT Communications, with the OCN brand, is already one of the largest ISPs in Japan.

Verio Inc. is the world's largest operator of Web sites for businesses and a leading provider of comprehensive Internet services, with an emphasis on serving the small and mid-sized business market.

The company provides a broad range of Internet solutions, including high-speed access, Web hosting, e-commerce, virtual private networks and other enhanced services. Verio delivers locally-based sales and engineering support in markets across the United States under the Verio brand name and provides Web-hosting services to customers in more than 170 countries.