FCC Stops the Clock on AT&T/T-Mobile Review

In a letter to AT&T, Federal Communications Commission Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Rick Kaplan indicates that the FCC has stopped its informal 180-day clock on the review of AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile.

Within the past week, AT&T has indicated that, since filing its public interest statement supporting its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile and its opposition comments to various petitions to deny the merger, it has developed new models upon which it now relies. Indeed, AT&T is now expressly relying on these models to bolster its arguments concerning the size of the efficiencies made possible by the merger as weighed against the potential anti-competitive effects. The FCC first learned of the scope of these models on July 13, 2011, during an ex parte meeting on economic issues held at the FCC, and now understands that its first opportunity to access the finalized versions of the new models will be on July 25, 2011.

Kaplan writes that the delay is necessary to allow sufficient time not only for the FCC to evaluate and test this new evidence, but also for third parties to have an opportunity to provide feedback to the FCC on the contents and construction of the yet-unseen models.

The FCC will restart the clock once the new evidence has been provided in a format and with sufficient explanation and back-up information to enable the FCC, and third parties entitled to have access to the information, to adequately evaluate it. The FCC will also allow time before restarting the clock for those third parties to have a meaningful opportunity to comment on the submission.