9th Circuit Supports Qwest in State Arbitration Dispute
Qwest was within its rights when it compelled arbitration of interconnection agreements with a CLEC, a federal appeals court confirmed. In an opinion Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed two district courts’ judgments in favor of Qwest…
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and state regulatory commissions in Arizona and Oregon. North County Communications, a CLEC, sued incumbent Qwest for seeking arbitration at the Arizona Corporation Commission and the Oregon Public Utility Commission of the carriers’ interconnection agreements . The CLEC said the commissions shouldn’t have forced North County into binding arbitration on Qwest’s request. But district courts in the two states supported each commission’s authority to arbitrate the agreements. The 9th Circuit agreed, saying in Tuesday’s order that the language in Qwest and North County’s previous 1997 interconnection agreement gave each party the power to compel arbitration by state commissions if negotiations between the parties failed to resolve their disputes. The 9th Circuit also rejected North County challenges to six provisions in the 2011 interconnection agreements. The court said the commissions didn’t violate the 1996 Telecom Act, nor were their actions arbitrary or capricious.