Quick FCC action on Verizon’s petition to increase...
Quick FCC action on Verizon’s petition to increase foreign ownership above 25 percent after buying from Vodafone the rest of Verizon Wireless for $130 billion shows streamlined agency rules are working, said broadcast and wireless lawyers in interviews Thursday. The…
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.
International Bureau the day before, just under three months after Verizon requested it, granted the company’s petition in the first such approval under an April order on common carrier transactions (CD Dec 5 p5). “The streamlined process is working, and the FCC is taking it seriously, and we look forward to taking advantage of this process for other clients on upcoming endeavors,” said wireless lawyer Michele Farquhar of Hogan Lovells, which represented Vodafone on the transaction. April’s common-carrier FCC order and another last month clarifying that broadcasters can also exceed a 25 percent non-U.S. investor threshold “are nice companion items that are moving forward,” she said. “Having the flexibility to have these new streamlined approaches on foreign ownership should attract more foreign investment capital to the U.S. telecom market, and that can take advantage of these synergies between” broadcast and telecom petition for foreign ownership declaratory ruling policies, said Farquhar. “The commission’s swift action signals that the new streamlined rules for foreign ownership petitions will work as promised -- the FCC staff reacted quickly and efficiently during every step of the process.” Vodafone “welcomes the FCC’s timely consideration of this matter,” said the U.K. carrier in a news release Wednesday night (http://bit.ly/1aDq6e2). It said if Vodafone and Verizon’s shareholders approve the deal, it’s expected to be complete in Q1. Free State Foundation President Randolph May credited the FCC with acting quickly on Verizon’s petition. “There was no legitimate reason for the Commission not to act quickly,” he wrote in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/18bKwju). “But many times in the past, even absent legitimate reasons for delay, there still have been undue delays -- many beyond ‘undue’ -- in acting on transaction reviews.” Verizon-Vodafone isn’t “a good test of how the agency will handle other, more controversial transactions,” but FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and staff got “off on the right foot in the handling” of this deal, wrote May.