Court maintains fine on 2002 auction bidder

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a fine assessed against Star Wireless L.L.C. for violating the anti-collusion rule in a 2002 auction conducted by the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC originally fined Star Wireless and Northeast Communications of Wisconsin Inc. $100,000 each for communicating with each other shortly after the lower 700 MHz band auction began in late August 2002. Last year, the FCC lowered each company’s penalty to $75,000. The quiet period banning discussions between bidders typically runs from the short-form application deadline through the deadline for post-auction down payments.
“The principal issue is whether the commission’s interpretation of its rules was not ‘ascertainably certain’ when the relevant interactions between Star and Northeast Communications of Wisconsin occurred. Star contends that the commission’s application of the rule was arbitrary and capricious because the harm addressed by the rule did not occur and its application thus violated Star’s commercial speech rights. We deny the petition,” stated the three-judge panel in an 11-page opinion written by Circuit Judge Judith Rogers.