Clients and Interested
Parties:
On February 19, 2008, the
Federal Communications Commission ("FCC")
released thirteen (13) Notices of Apparent
Liability for Forfeiture ("NALs")
proposing to levy fines against carriers
for failure to respond to FCC informal
complaints. The base forfeiture amount
for failure to provide written
responses to an FCC communication as
directed is $4,000 per informal
complaint. As the Commission points out,
however, monetary forfeitures can be
levied up to $130,000 per violation, and
up to a maximum of $1,325,000 for a
continuing violation. In the recent set
of NALs issued by the FCC for failure to
respond to informal complaints, the
specific fines levied ranged from $4,000
to $96,000, depending on the number of
informal complaints involved.
On March 2, 2007, nearly
one year ago, the FCC released a Public
Notice reminding carriers of the
importance of compliance with informal
complaint rules and that failure to
timely respond to informal complaints as
directed will be subject to enforcement
action. A copy of that Public Notice is
attached. The recent release of these
NALs as well as other recent FCC actions
underscore the FCC's commitment to
aggressively enforcing its informal
complaint rules.
Please feel
free to contact us if you have any
questions regarding your company's
compliance with the FCC's informal
complaint procedures and requirements.
