FCC Briefing for Investors Criticized

FCC BRIEFING FOR INVESTORS CRITICIZED
[SOURCE: MyNetscape/Associated Press]
With federal regulators deadlocked on what may prove to be the largest telecommunications merger in history, news about progress on the deal has become scarce and highly coveted. So the small group of clients of Banc of America Securities LLC were privileged Wednesday to get an exclusive briefing from top-ranking staff of the Federal Communications Commission at hotel a block away from agency headquarters. The meeting was described as "timely" in a brief item in Communications Daily, the telecommunications industry newsletter, with "topics including the AT&T/BellSouth merger and net neutrality pending at the Commission." The meeting, however, was not open to the public or the media -- it was for Banc of America "clients only." When a reporter from The Associated Press walked into the meeting room during a lunch break, he was escorted out by Banc of America Securities' managing director David W. Barden. The FCC has been criticized in the past by public interest groups for its cozy relationship with industry, and Wednesday's episode was particularly disturbing, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president and CEO of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm. "When public officials are speaking privately, expressing things to influential investors, that they are unwilling to share with the rest of the public, taxpayers have a right to be upset," he said. "What do they have to say that they can't say to everyone else?" A bank spokesman declined to comment.
http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=50700&id=200611291...
Also at: http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2006/11/29/daily.10/

* See a related article:
Regulatory Event Risk Headlines Fitch's U.S. Telecom Outlook for 2007
[SOURCE: Fitch Ratings press release]
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/061129/20061129005554.html?.v=1