FCC Should Have Stopped AWS-3 Auction 'Before Omelet Scrambled': Tech Groups
Standard judicial deference to administrative agencies "provides no shield when an agency engages in a sustained pattern of hostility towards an entity it regulates and ignores basic principles of fairness and due process," tech industry interest groups said in an…
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amicus brief Tuesday (docket 22-672) backing Northstar Wireless' Supreme Court cert petition. Northstar is challenging the appellate court's upholding the FCC's denial of bidding credits to Northstar (see 2301230007). The interest groups said Northstar fully disclosed its relationship with Dish Network before the AWS-3 auction, and the FCC never indicated anything was amiss when "it could have stopped the auction before the omelet was scrambled." The commission's actions raise "significant due process concerns" and the agency had no right under the Administrative Procedure Act to change its practices without notice "simply because [it] resented how 'slick lawyers' made the Commission look foolish," they told the Supreme Court. Behind the amicus brief are Phoenix Center, Computer & Communications Industry Association, the International Center for Law & Economics, New America's Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and Incompas. The FCC didn't comment Wednesday.