Supreme Court Won't Hear Verizon Spectrum Case
The Supreme Court denied cert in a case involving Verizon’s acquisition of spectrum licenses. Chief Justice John Roberts didn’t participate, said a Monday order. In November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected small carrier NTCH’s challenge…
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of an FCC order approving Verizon’s buy of AWS-1 licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox (see 1611150039). NTCH argued the FCC unlawfully awarded thousands of licenses to Verizon Wireless in violation of the Communications Act. NTCH raised concerns because of the 45 percent ownership of Verizon Wireless then held by the U.K.’s Vodafone. “It’s always an uphill climb to get the Supreme Court to grant cert, but we thought this one had a decent chance given the billions of dollars of licenses that had been awarded unlawfully by the FCC and the extraordinary machinations the FCC went through to prevent judicial review of its actions,” said Donald Evans of Fletcher Heald, who represented NTCH. “It’s disappointing for NTCH, but in the larger scheme, the court’s decision leaves administrative agencies with an unbridled ability to shield their misconduct from judicial review. So it’s not a good outcome from the standpoint of checking the power of administrative agencies to violate the laws they are charged with enforcing.”