Competitive Enterprise Institute Fires Opening Appeals Court Shot at FCC Charter-TWC Conditions

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has filed the opening brief in its challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's conditions on the 2016 Charter-Time Warner Cable (Bright House) merger. CEI challenged the conditions that it said went beyond the FCC's legal authority by imposing conditions unrelated to the services whose cable licenses were being exchanged and unrelated to any transaction-specific harm, including that the company build out broadband to an agency-mandated minimum new customers, that it provide a low-income broadband program and that it not engage in usage-based pricing or impose data caps. Those conditions cause harm to Charter's customers that the FCC did not recognize or consider in imposing them, it told the court. The group also suggests the FCC's buildout condition was arbitrary and capricious because the FCC mandate to get bigger (build out to more broadband customers) "contradicts the agency's own findings expressing concerns regarding the post-merger size of New Charter."