Time out for Comcast/TWC review

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ClockThe FCC hit the pause button on the regulatory clock on the proposed nuptials of Comcast and Time Warner Cable. At issue are the distribution of thousands of documents.
The clock was into day 104 out of 180, according to a report in The Hill.


At issue are some 7,000 documents in the TWC privilege log which should have but been but were not reported to the FCC. Additionally, some 31,000 documents did not get to the FCC due to vendor error – an error that will be corrected 12/30/14.

The FCC stated, “The effect of these late disclosures has been to slow down the Commission’s review of the Comcast/TWC/Charter transaction, in particular because sections of the review that staff had thought were complete now must be reopened to take account of the additional documents that have been disclosed. This does not simply require examining the additional documents, but rerunning many of the document searches and reconsidering the analyses that staff thought were complete. In addition, staff has been hampered in its review of TWC’s privilege log because, after only a cursory review of the log, it was apparent that many entries were incomplete which hampered review of TWC’s privilege claims. While the Commission can understand and accept that minor errors can occur when preparing both documents for production and privilege logs; it expects applicants to promptly correct errors, without prompting, when they occur. Here, however, the magnitude of the errors, with respect to both the document production and the privilege log, is material and the delays in rectifying them were substantial so that the tardy productions have interfered with the Commission’s ability to conduct a prompt and thorough review of the pending application.”

The clock will resume 1/12/15. No other dates related to the proceeding are changed.