Full FCC Upholds Denial of 42 FM Auction Application Refunds
The full FCC denied 42 applications for review of the commission chief financial officer's March 2013 decision denying requests for refunds of application fees paid by winning bidders in FM Radio service auctions between 2004 and 2011, said an order…
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issued Friday in docket 13-163. The item was circulated to the eighth floor July 21 (see 1707240063). “We find that collection of the fees was required by law, and that Petitioners based their refund requests on a misreading of our rules,” the order said. The matter is rooted in language in the 1998 broadcast auction order that requires winning bidders in broadcast service auctions to submit application fees, and language in procedural rules adopted in 1994 that says high bidders won’t have to pay such fees, the PN said. Winning bidders “paid the long-form application fees without question until 2009,” the PN said, when a high bidder asked for a refund based on the earlier language stating there would be no such fee. The FCC began a rulemaking in 2011 to clarify the matter, and while it was pending FCC staff granted four refunds and then stopped. “As broadcast auction winners became aware that some refunds had been granted, the number of parties filing refund requests grew,” the PN said. In 2011, the FCC revised the earlier rule to require fees and end the conflict, and in 2013 the CFO denied all the pending refunds, the PN said. “We find that the fees at issue in the pending applications for review cannot be refunded because the fees were required” by the FCC’s rules, said the PN upholding the denials.