FCC Exclusion of Site Commission Costs Key to GTL Inmate Calling Challenge
Global Tel*Link targeted FCC exclusion of site commission costs as central to its court challenge to the agency's inmate calling service rate restrictions (see 1510220059). The commission order "(i) imposed tiered rate caps for ICS in prisons, jails, and other…
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.
correctional facilities based on the FCC’s calculation of the cost of providing ICS; (ii) excluded from its calculation of the cost of providing ICS the site commissions ICS providers are required to pay correctional facilities for the right to provide service; (iii) applied its rate caps to both interstate and intrastate ICS calls," GTL said in a statement of legal issues filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461 and consolidated cases). GTL said the issues include whether the decision to exclude site commissions from its calculations caused the FCC to set rate caps at levels that (1) prevent ICS providers from recovering their acknowledged costs, (2) are confiscatory and (3) are arbitrary and capricious and otherwise unlawful. GTL also questioned the legality and constitutionality of the rate caps notwithstanding the exclusion of site commission calculations, and whether the FCC had the authority to reduce and cap intrastate ICS rates. In a separate statement, GTL asked for more time to propose a briefing format, since two other parties, Securus and Telmate, have filed legal challenges and the time for filing hasn't closed. The FCC recently denied ICS provider requests for a stay of the order; the providers have said they will seek a court stay (see 1601220040).