Arbitration is something to be avoided, six of the largest...
Arbitration is something to be avoided, six of the largest media companies told the FCC. That’s why the commission should reject Comcast’s arguments over a recent Media Bureau order that requires online video distributors (OVDs) to disclose upfront certain licensing…
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.
agreements when an OVD seeks to license Comcast/NBCUniversal programming under the terms of the Benchmark Condition to the FCC’s order approving the merger of those two companies. Comcast “claims that this is only a clarification and it is not a question of ‘whether’ a contract will be disclosed, but ‘when,'” said CBS, News Corp., Sony Pictures, Time Warner, Viacom and Disney in a joint reply to Comcast’s opposition in the proceeding (http://xrl.us/bodd6p). “This argument misses the point that ‘when’ will determine ‘whether,'” because the costs, inconvenience and uncertainty inherent to arbitration make it something most parties want to avoid, they said. As it stands, the Media Bureau order -- which the companies asked the commission to review and block -- transformed the Benchmark Condition from a check on Comcast/NBCU’s power in dealing with new OVDs to a huge advantage, the media companies said. A reversal is necessary to protect the public interest because it “is the product of arbitrary and capricious decision-making, abrogates contracts without statutory authority, creates a regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment and violates federal statutes,” they said.