WSJ

Dec 23, 2014 • Post A Comment

The Federal Communications Commission has delayed its review of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger because of the failure of Time Warner Cable to produce documents requested by the agency in a timely manner, The Wall Street Journal reports. (The publication is behind a pay wall and may charge to access the story.)

FCC media bureau chief William Lake said Time Warner Cable improperly withheld more than 7,000 documents “based on an inappropriate claim of attorney-client privilege.” The FCC last week learned that the cable company failed to send more than 31,000 documents because of a “vendor error,” the story adds.

Because of the delay in producing documents, the FCC’s review is now delayed. The agency is stopping its 180-day shot clock for reviewing the transaction, which means the merger review process will be set back another three weeks, the story notes. The review had already been delayed by two months due to another issue.

“The magnitude of errors, with respect to both the document production and the privilege log, is material and the delays in rectifying them were substantial,” Lake said.

Time Warner Cable told WSJ that it had provided “more than five million pages of documents” to the FCC and that it will continue to provide the agency with “everything that they need to review this transaction.”