Charter Seeks Judicial Intervention in Univision Discovery Fight
Charter Communications and Univision are at odds over Univision's providing documents or information that Charter says it needs to defend against "baseless allegations" of breach of contract and good faith and fair dealing. In a letter to New York State…
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Supreme Court Judge Peter Sherwood of Manhattan posted Monday, Charter said Univision refused to provide requested documents on that company's past analysis of actual or potential multichannel video programming distributor mergers and acquisitions and what effects those would or did have on Univision rates and its understanding of the relationship between rates charged by content providers and the number of MVPDs' customers. Charter cited a Univision response that called the operator's request "overbroad, vague and unduly burdensome" and irrelevant to the proceeding. Charter expects the requested information will show Univision was aware of common industry practice that when MVPDs combine, the new entity doesn't end up paying higher rates than either of the smaller constituent companies did, it said. Charter said it and Univision reached an impasse on negotiating the scope of discovery and asked Sherwood to schedule a conference to discuss and resolve the fight. Univision didn't comment Wednesday. The companies are in a legal fight over which legacy contract survived Charter buying Time Warner Cable -- the one Univision had with Charter or its contract with TWC (see 1607080022). Fox News network is pursuing a similar complaint (see 1607200065).