Background

As we discussed in several earlier blog posts, this case stems from a complaint that the FTC filed against AT&T Mobility in the Northern District of California in October 2014 alleging that AT&T deceived customers by throttling their unlimited data plans without adequate disclosures. AT&T moved to dismiss the case on the grounds that it was exempt under Section 5, based on its status as a common carrier, but the district court denied the motion, finding that the common carrier exemption was activity-based, and AT&T was not acting as a common carrier when it offered mobile broadband service, which, at the time the FCC classified as a non-common-carrier “information service.” AT&T appealed and a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court, holding that the common carrier exemption was “status-based,” and the FTC lacked jurisdiction to bring the claim. As we noted then, the three-judge panel’s decision was the first recent case to address the “status-based” interpretation of the common carrier exemption, and the decision – if it stood – could re-shape the jurisdictional boundaries between the FCC’s and the FTC’s regulation of entities in the communications industry.

The En Banc Court’s Analysis

The FTC appealed the case to an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit, which issued its opinion this week. The court’s decision relied on the text and history of the statute, case law, and significant deference to the interpretations of the FTC and FCC, which both view the common carrier exemption as activity-based rather than status-based.

The Court first analyzed the history of Section 5 and the common carrier exemption. It found that the Congress intended the exemption to be activity based and rejected textual arguments advanced by AT&T that other statutory provisions—including Section 6 of the FTC Act and the Packers and Stockyard Exception—demonstrated that the common carrier exemption was status based. The Court gave significant weight to the understanding of common carriers in 1914, when the FTC Act was first passed, and legislative statements made during consideration of that Act.

The Court then addressed case law that an entity can be a common carrier for some activities but not for others. The Court found this case law to support an activity-based interpretation of the common carrier exemption. Specifically, the Court found that while Congress has not defined the term “common carrier,” Supreme Court case law leading up to and following the passage of the FTC Act interpreted the term “common carrier” as an activity-based classification, and not as a “unitary status for regulatory purposes.” The Court found that its approach was consistent with the Ninth Circuit’s longstanding interpretation of the term “common carrier” as activity-based, as well as the interpretations of the Second, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits. (AT&T did not contest these cases, but instead argued that the FCC had many legal tools to address non-common carrier activities, including Title I ancillary authority and potential structural separation.)

Notably, the Court also provided significant deference to the views of the FTC and FCC, both of which have recently expressed the view that the FTC could regulate non-common carrier activities of common carriers. The Court cited the FCC’s amicus brief before the en banc panel and a 2015 Memorandum of Understanding between the two agencies that interpreted the common carrier exemption as activity-based.

Finally, the Court rejected arguments that the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order reclassifying mobile broadband as a common carrier service (or the FCC’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order reversing that classification) retroactively impacted the outcome of the appeal.

Agency Response

After the court issued its opinion, both FTC Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai applauded the ruling. Chairman Ohlhausen stated that the ruling “ensures that the FTC can and will continue to play its vital role in safeguarding consumer interests including privacy protection, as well as stopping anticompetitive market behavior,” while Chairman Pai stated that the ruling is “a significant win for American consumers” that “reaffirms that the [FTC] will once again be able to police Internet service providers” after the Restoring Internet Freedom Order goes into effect.

Our Take

The Ninth Circuit’s ruling is unsurprising in some senses. When a court grants en banc review, it often is for the purpose of reversing or at least narrowing the panel’s initial decision. AT&T also faced fairly strong questioning during the oral argument in September. Further, the Court’s decision affirms a position that the FTC had taken for many years and that the FCC – as evidenced by the 2015 Memorandum of Understanding – supported. Thus, the en banc court here effectively affirms current practice.

All of that said, the issue is not settled. AT&T’s reaction was decidedly muted, and it may still seek Supreme Court review of the question. This option may be particularly attractive to AT&T because it noted several times during the oral argument that it faced both FTC and FCC enforcement actions against it for allegedly the same activities. The Ninth Circuit did not mention the FCC enforcement action or the potentially conflicting interpretations of AT&T’s obligations. It is not clear whether both actions could or would proceed as a result of the decision.

Going forward, once the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order takes effect, we can expect that the FTC will serve as the top cop for alleged broadband consumer protection violations, including with respect to open Internet- and privacy-related complaints. And yet, there is still some uncertainty. The FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order is under appeal. If the appeals court that ultimately hears the challenges to the Restoring Internet Freedom Order were to reverse the Order, the possibility exists that broadband services would again come under FCC common carrier jurisdiction, thereby exempting the provision of such services from FTC jurisdiction even under an activity-based interpretation of the FTC Act. Thus, we may not have finality on broadband regulation, despite the Court’s decision this week.

More broadly, we expect that the FTC will continue to push for eliminating the common carrier exemption altogether before the Congress, as it has for many years. Congressional action to repeal the exemption appears unlikely in the near term.

At least for now, broadband providers should continue to ensure that their privacy and broadband practices are in line with FTC guidelines and judicial interpretations of Section 5, and should comply with remaining FCC Open Internet requirements, such as the transparency rule.

As we previously discussed, the Order effectively reverses the Commission’s 2015 Open Internet Order, reclassifying broadband Internet access service as a lightly regulated Title I “information service” and eliminating the 2015 Order’s open Internet rules (while retaining a modified version of the transparency requirement).

The Order will not go into effect until after the Office of Management and Budget completes its Paperwork Reduction Act review, which could take several months. However, last Thursday’s publication is significant because it triggers deadlines for challenges to the Order, both in the courts and in Congress.

The Federal Register publication gives litigants ten days to file petitions for review in federal courts of appeals if they would like to be included in a court lottery to determine the venue for consolidating the Order’s challenges. The following petitions have already been filed:

• New York District Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced he and 22 other Democratic attorneys general filed a petition for review at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit;
• Public Knowledge, Mozilla, Vimeo, National Hispanic Media Coalition, and New America’s Open Technology Institute each filed petitions for review in the D.C. Circuit;
• The California Public Utilities Commission and Santa Clara County each filed appeals in the Ninth Circuit;

Federal Register publication also allows lawmakers to formally introduce a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval, which would reverse the Order and prevent the Commission from subsequently introducing a substantially similar Order. While CRA resolutions are a powerful tool in the hands of the majority – as we saw with the rollback of the Broadband Privacy Order earlier this year – as the minority party, the Democrats are at a significant disadvantage. Senator Ed Markey, D-MA, and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, D-PA, have led the Democrat’s effort to draft a CRA resolution to nullify the Order. At the time of this blog post, the CRA resolution had 50 Senator co-sponsors, including all 49 Democratic senators and Senator Susan Collins, R-ME. President Trump is not expected to support the CRA resolution, even if the measure passed both chambers of Congress.

In addition to activities in federal court and in Congress, 26 states are considering net neutrality legislation, and five state governors have issued executive orders regarding net neutrality following the Commissioners’ December 2017 vote.

We will follow up this blog post with a more comprehensive review of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order soon. In the meantime, contact any of the authors of this blog post for more information on the proceeding.

The Ninth Circuit’s decision is the latest in a series of actions attempting to identify the jurisdiction over Internet access services and Internet-based services. As providers and regulators have struggled to identify the proper regulations applicable to such services, the Ninth Circuit’s decision could force significant shifts by both the FTC and FCC for at least a large segment of the industry.

Background

At issue before the Ninth Circuit was the scope of the FTC Act’s exemption of “common carriers” from the FTC’s authority. The FTC argued, and the trial court held, that the common carrier exemption only applied to the extent that the service in question is a common carrier service (i.e., an “activity-based” test that precluded FTC jurisdiction only where a common carrier is engaging in common carrier activities). Because the service that the FTC challenged (wireless broadband Internet access service (“BIAS”)) was not a common carrier service at the time that the FTC brought its action against AT&T, the trial court held AT&T was not engaging in common carrier activity and therefore the FTC had authority to bring its lawsuit.

AT&T appealed the decision, arguing that the FTC Act’s exemption of common carriers should be based on their status, and thus telecommunications service providers like itself are exempt from the FTC’s authority regardless of whether the activity at issue is a common carrier service.

The Ninth Circuit noted two things related to the dispute. First, the court noted that “it is undisputed that AT&T is and was a ‘common carrier[] subject to the Acts to regulate commerce’ for a substantial part of its activity.” Further, the court noted that, during the time period in question, AT&T’s mobile data service “was not identified and regulated by the FCC as a common carrier service” although, since the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order, the FCC has classified the service as a common carrier service.

The Ninth Circuit sided with AT&T, and remanded the case for an entry of an order for dismissal. The court held that under the plain language of the statute, the exemption is based on a company’s status and applies regardless of the activity at issue. The “literal reading of the words Congress selected,” the court wrote, “simply does not comport with an activity-based approach [to the common carrier exemption].” The court compared the common carrier exemption to the other exemptions in the statute (for banks, savings and loan institutions, federal credit unions, air carriers and foreign air carriers) that are admitted by the FTC to be status-based, and to the exemption for meatpackers “insofar as they are subject to the Packers and Stockyards Act,” which the court found to be activity-based. The court held that amendments enacted in 1958 to Section 5 – which added the “insofar as” language – indicated an activity-based exemption for that provision but affirmed status-based exemptions for the remainder “then and now.”

Notably, the Ninth Circuit chose to address the status question, rather than addressing a more narrow issue of whether the FCC’s 2015 reclassification of BIAS as a telecommunications service applied to AT&T’s service retroactively.

Implications

The FTC issued a statement that it is “disappointed” and “considering [its] options,” but it is unclear whether it will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. It is worth noting that, although the Ninth Circuit did not discuss the decisions, this is the third time that a court of appeals has faced status-based arguments relating to the common carrier exemption. The Seventh Circuit’s 1977 decision in U.S. v. Miller, and the Second Circuit’s 2006 decision in FTC v. Verity Int’l, Ltd., both involved entities claiming common carrier status, although neither decision brought finality to the question. If the FTC pursues the issue further, industry and practitioners could receive welcome guidance on the issue.

More broadly, the FTC has openly called for the end of the common carrier exemption in the past few years. This decision may add fuel to the agency’s efforts in that regard.

As is, the decision makes it more difficult for the FTC to bring an action against a company that can claim to be a common carrier. The Ninth Circuit’s decision noted that AT&T unquestionably was a common carrier “for a substantial part of its activity” and at one point distinguished a case, noting that AT&T’s status “is not based on its acquisition of some minor division unrelated to the company’s core activities.” Nevertheless, the court’s analysis leaves open the possibility that even providing only a small amount of common carrier service may be enough to qualify all of a company’s activities for the common carrier exemption.

On the FCC side, there are equally broad questions raised by the decision. The FCC recently has broadly construed its own authority under Section 201(b), to a fair degree of controversy, to address practices of common carriers “for or in connection with” their services, such as advertising and billing. Presumably, these efforts will continue after the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling, however, may encourage the FCC to fill any potential gap in coverage by taking a broader view of its own authority to regulate non-common carrier services that common carriers offer to consumers. This could have significant implications for a number of ongoing FCC proceedings, including a proceeding to overhaul the FCC’s privacy rules after the Open Internet Order and requests to classify SMS messaging and interconnected voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) service as telecommunications services subject to common carrier regulation. This also might color the FCC’s approach to regulation of over-the-top services provided by non-carrier entities using telecommunications or Internet services.

Time will tell how this plays out, but for now, the Ninth Circuit appears to have significantly reset the boundaries between the agencies’ jurisdictions. AT&T is not off the hook yet, however, as it faces a parallel action from the FCC, which has issued a Notice of Apparent Liability to AT&T, alleging that its disclosures in connection with its unlimited data plans violated the FCC’s “transparency” rules. The FCC proposed $100 million in forfeitures for the violation, which sparked vigorous dissent by the two Republican commissioners and was opposed by AT&T in a strongly-worded response. The FCC forfeiture proceeding remains pending.

Steve Augustino and Jameson Dempsey, of Kelley Drye’s Communication Group, co-authored this post.