California PUC Likely to Rule Monday on Petition to Revise Comcast/TWC Review Timeline
A decision is likely on Monday on the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) schedule for reviewing the Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) deal and associated transactions, state participants in the review told us. California public interest groups have joined with the CPUC’s Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) in petitioning Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer to reconsider the review schedule he set earlier this month, which they view as too compressed to result in the thorough review the CPUC had planned. CPUC had earlier delayed its review in response to the FCC’s temporary pause of its own review in the case (see 1410140022). Another administrative law judge who had temporarily replaced Bemesderfer had ruled last month on the scope of ORA’s discovery requests for the review, but deferred to Bemesderfer on a revised schedule (see 1410170049). Comments on the ORA’s petition were due at the close of business Friday.
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The schedule Bemesderfer set would require parties to file opening briefs on Comcast/TWC by Dec. 1, with reply briefs due Dec. 8. Hearings on the review would occur Dec. 10 and 11 at the CPUC’s San Francisco headquarters. The commission would reach a proposed decision by Jan. 12 and would adopt a final decision in mid-February, according to Bemesderfer’s schedule. ORA and public interest groups said they want the CPUC to revise the schedule to make opening briefs due 15 days after all requested information in the Comcast/TWC case is fully available, which would be “consistent with the FCC’s action in its proceeding” and the CPUC’s scoping memo. They previously had called for a new schedule that would delay a draft decision until as late as mid-March (see 1410150092).
The Dec. 1 deadline for opening comments, if allowed to stand, would be a “very hard and fast deadline” for parties to prepare comments, said Media Alliance Executive Director Tracy Rosenberg. “From the point of view of most public interest advocates, having 14 days to prepare these comments was a pretty quick deadline to do a thorough job on what is a pretty broad proceeding,” she said. That timeline is further complicated by the Thanksgiving holiday, which “makes it very difficult” for ORA to meet with experts as it prepares its own comments on the review, said ORA Senior Attorney Lindsay Brown.
The Dec. 1 deadline is also complicated by the ongoing dispute over whether outside counsel will get access to content providers' Video Programming Confidential Information (VPCI). Bemesderfer’s order misconstrued the FCC’s decision to allow a controlled release of those documents, which had originally been set to begin Nov. 17 (see 1411120029), as a restart of the FCC’s review shot clock, Greenlining Institute Legal Counsel Paul Goodman said. ORA reads the FCC’s decision on access to the documents as saying the commission “isn’t starting up the clock until this issue is resolved,” Brown said. The programming documents are likely to be crucial in some parties’ comments on Comcast/TWC, she said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s decision Friday (see 1411210042">1411210042) to further stay the FCC’s release of the VPCI documents while its considers the merits of content providers’ petition for review may allow “more breathing room” for Bemesderfer to allow a delay in the CPUC’s review schedule, Brown said. The D.C. Circuit’s earlier temporary stay of the documents’ release left open the question of “when the FCC would act,” she said. Some public interest advocates have said they believe the CPUC felt the need to speed up its schedule to allow it to still file comments with the FCC that could affect that commission’s Comcast/TWC review.