UPM Wants 9th Circuit to Reverse FCC Orders on Digicel-Haiti
UPM asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse FCC decisions backing Digicel-Haiti’s 2014 deactivation of thousands of SIM cards that UPM purchased from a third party and that granted access to a Digicel-Haiti discount roaming plan, the Helsinki-based company said in a brief Wednesday. In response to a UPM complaint and rulings by lower courts, the FCC found that Digicel-Haiti didn’t qualify as a U.S. telecommunications carrier under the agency’s jurisdiction and that Digicel’s deactivation of the cards didn’t violate the law (see 2501150076).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
The FCC’s conclusions are “plainly wrong,” UPM said. The agency “erred” by “holding that an entity’s status as a carrier depends on where it makes its offer to provide service.” It also ignored its own precedent by finding that UPM’s resale of access to Digicel’s discount plan was fraud, UPM said. “Extensive FCC precedent” shows that “bans on resale, such as the one imposed by Digicel, are unlawful,” the brief said. “Confronted with the uncontested, admitted situation of Digicel banning resale of its services, the FCC should have presumed that Digicel’s practice was unjust and unreasonable and demanded that Digicel provide a strong, pro-competitive, pro-consumer justification.” The 9th Circuit should vacate and reverse the FCC’s orders, UPM argued.