MCI Communications denied wrongdoings alleged by the Iowa Office of...
MCI Communications denied wrongdoings alleged by the Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate [OCA]. The consumer advocate had petitioned “the [Iowa Utilities] Board to commence a proceeding to consider a civil penalty for cramming violation” against MCI on July 9 (http://bit.ly/OwGTpB).…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The petition centered on a man’s complaint that MCI had “for years placed unauthorized charges for a long distance service on his local phone bill,” the petition said. On Friday MCI declared “OCA misses the forest for the trees,” in a filing with the board (http://bit.ly/RrrSGa). “[OCA] urges the Board to pursue additional investigation of events that date back more than a decade, but fails to acknowledge that regardless of whether ultimate ‘fault’ for an inadvertent error might be assigned to one of the carriers as a result, no civil penalties are warranted here.” The instances cited by the consumer represent “an inadvertent system processing error by one of the involved carriers” at most and the office’s petition should be denied, MCI said. The petition amounts to “demand for a wild goose chase” and is “irrational,” it added.