FCC appoints review heads for Comcast/TWC, AT&T/DirecTV deal

Alina Selyukh (Reuters) – An AFederal Communications Commission lawyer will lead the agency’s review of the proposed merger of Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable Inc, while an outside lawyer will join to lead the review of AT&T Inc’s bid for DirecTV, the FCC said on Monday. Hillary Burchuk, a former lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division who joined the FCC in 2011, will lead the agency’s task force reviewing the proposed $45.2 billion merger between two of the largest U.S. cable providers, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The panel will also review Comcast’s related contract with Charter Communications Inc. Jamillia Ferris, also a former antitrust lawyer at the Department of Justice, will join the FCC from the law firm Hunton & Williams LLP to lead the team reviewing the proposed No. merger. 2 wireless carrier AT&T and the largest satellite television service provider DirecTV. Court documents show that Burchuk in 2011 participated in a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block the proposed merger of U.S. wireless carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. Ferris served as deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff and advisor to the head of the US antitrust office, Bill Baer, ​​from 2010 to 2013, and according to her online biography, she took part in suing Apple Inc and book publishers for fixing e-book prices. The documents do not indicate that any of them were involved in the 2011 Justice Department settlement that allowed Comcast to buy programmer NBC Universal under certain conditions. For deals to go through, companies must convince the FCC that their mergers are in the public interest. The Justice Department can also block deals if it finds they violate antitrust laws. Both review teams will report to a steering committee chaired by FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and including the heads of the FCC’s wireline and wireless competition offices, the agency announced. As the review process progresses, several members of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office will also be involved, an FCC official said – general counsel Maria Kirby, special counsel for external affairs Gigi Sohn, senior adviser Philip Verveer and chief of staff Ruth Milkman. Northwestern University professors William Rogerson and Shane Greenstein will serve as senior economists and senior economic consultants on both mergers, the FCC said. (Reporting by Alina Selyukh in Toronto; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)