Safeco
Corporation (SAF) - Liberty Mutual Group
May 29, 2008 (12:50p) - Washington OIC
Status
The Washington OIC received the
companies Form A
application on May 16, 2008.
There are no statutory deadlines associated with the OIC
review, but the companies have formally requested a decision by August 15,
2008.
The OIC will schedule a Form A hearing 60 days from deeming the
application complete and the final decision is likely to be made at the
conclusion of the hearing or, in a worst-case scenario, a week or two after the
hearing.
The key to timing will be the application completion period,
for which (as noted previously) the OIC is seeking outside "accounting and legal
services". The deadline for bids on the outside services is June 9, 2008, so the
companies August 15 request is obviously tenuous. In order for this to occur,
the OIC would need to select an outside entity and deem the application complete
within a one-week time frame beginning on June 9. This does not seem very likely
given the magnitude of this transaction in Washington.
According to OIC officials, the Form A hearing date will be
published almost immediately upon scheduling. The application review process
will be monitored closely over the next several weeks in hopes of determining if
the companies August 15 decision target date can be
achieved.
XM Satellite
Radio (XMSR) - SIRIUS Satellite Radio (SIRI)
May 28, 2008 (3:40p) - Status Report
Once again, despite the various and seemingly countless
perspectives on recent activity involving the FCC, there is quite literally no
substantial developments to report. Commissioner Martin's comments
suggesting a decision before the end of June are nearly identical to the
rhetoric Mr. Martin has offered since late last year, and should in now way be
taken at face value. While a June decision would be in no way surprising, it
would be equally un-shocking if the FCC review continued into July, or even
August. What seems to be widely overlooked here is that the FCC very likely
would have concluded its review several weeks ago if the DOJ had imposed
conditions as part of its approval. As this obviously did not occur, the FCC is
essentially on its own in reaching what will be a monumental decision. In other
words, there is simply no reason to expect Commissioner Martin's latest vague
projection to come to fruition.
There has been some renewed effort by intervenors (the C3SR in
particular) to encourage the FCC to hold public hearing as part of the FCC
license review. At this late stage of the FCC review, a public hearing seems
extremely unlikely, although this is very clearly a situation in which such an
event would be extremely helpful to all interested parties, and the public in
general. If the FCC were to hold a public hearing, as it did in the latter
stages of the GMH-DISH transaction ( the
hearing designation in that case was made just more than ten months into the FCC
review), the decision for this review would naturally be pushed back well into
the summer of this year.
However, there is currently no indication that the FCC in
inclined to designate this case for public hearing and it is presumed that no
such inclination will occur this late into the review process.
Regardless of the continued hype surrounding the FCC review in
this deal, the bottom line has been evident since the DOJ decision in March. The
FCC decision will come down to the quantity and severity of conditions at the
end of the day.
