The FCC has stopped the clock on its review of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger again the discovery of more than 7,000 pages of TWC (NYSE: TWC) documents the agency hadn't accounted for.
The three-week pause is set to end Jan. 12. The review just restarted two weeks ago, after having been delayed since October as the FCC awaited other documents and heard objections from programmers who didn't want their deals with the pay-TV operators disclosed as part of the review.
The latest delay resulted from documents that the FCC claims were improperly withheld by an "inappropriate claim of attorney-client privilege." FCC lawyers complain the that the process will now be further slowed "because sections of the review that staff had thought were complete now must be reopened to take account of the additional documents that have been disclosed."
Responding to Bloomberg, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said matters "remain on track for the transaction review to be concluded early in 2015."
Bobby Amirshahi, her colleague at TWC, added, "Today's delay is a procedural issue, not a substantive one. We already have provided the FCC more than 5 million pages of documents and we will continue to provide the FCC everything that they need."
For more:
- read this Bloomberg story
- read this Re/code story
Related links:
Shot clock delays put FCC merger timelines into March
Comcast dismisses new 'special interest group,' touts supporters
Dish Network, labor unions form anti-merger coalition 'Stop Mega Comcast'
FCC pauses shot clock on AT&T-DirecTV merger, as Andreessen and Cuban offer their support