Recently the Federal Communications Commission (the “Commission” or “FCC”) issued a Public Notice announcing that certain rules adopted in its September 2020 “Executive Branch Review Order” and September 2021 “Executive Branch Standard Questions Order” have finally become effective and codified in Title 47 of the US Code of Federal Regulations. The codification of these rules marks an important milestone in the Commission’s ongoing efforts to promote efficiency and transparency in its application review process involving the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector (the “Committee”, also informally known as “Team Telecom”). In this client alert, we highlight the major rules that went into effect:
Rules Governing the Referral of Certain Applications to the Committee
In the 2020 Executive Branch Review Order, the Commission adopted rules and procedures aimed at formalizing and modernizing the interagency review process for applications from companies with foreign ownership seeking to participate in the US telecommunications market. Among other things, the Executive Branch Review Order adopted rules governing the types of applications that the Commission will, and will generally not, refer to the Committee for review. These exceptions to the Team Telecom referral process were intended to streamline the process and put the Committee’s resources to their best and highest use by not requiring staff to review applications that generally do not raise national security concerns. Notably, however, the Commission reserved and did not codify the proposed exceptions to its referral process until now.
