Comcast, Time Warner Cable Hit With Acquisition Review Delay

The Comcast and Time Warner Cable merger has hit another snag, with the Federal Communications Commission reporting that Time Warner had held back over 7,000 documents. The FCC discovered the issue some time this month, with the reason said to have been caused by "an inappropriate claim of attorney-client privilege." After realizing 7,000 or so documents were withheld, the FCC then discovered Time Warner had also experienced a "vendor error" that resulted in failure to provide more than 31,000 documents.

The issue was revealed by the FCC's Media Bureau Chief William Lake, who reported that Time Warner Cable was originally set to send the commission the aforementioned documents by December 30th, a date that was later bumped up to December 22 at the FCC's prompting.

The delay in getting the FCC all the documents means that aspects of the review previously closed now have to be re-opened to take into account the new data. In order to make sure all of the documents have finally been delivered, the FCC will stop its 180 day "shot clock" to verify the latest documents, not restarting the process until January 12.

This is the second delay the merger has seen, though Comcast has said it is still expecting that the review process will be wrapped up early next year. For its part, Time Warner Cable said it has given the FCC more than 5 million pages so far, and that'll keep providing the commission with whatever it needs for the review.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal