On Tuesday the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is delayed a decision to reopen a 25-year-old telecommunications rate case.
In 1989, the commission voted 2-1 to allow then-Southwestern Bell (what’s now AT&T) to invest $30 million dollars in infrastructure instead of offering customers a refund.
Some residents say that decision should be reviewed, since Commissioner was convicted of taking a bribe in order to vote with Southwestern Bell. The Journal Record’s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports the case was brought to the OCC by Nichols Hills Mayor Sody Clements, and Edmond Police Chief Bob Ricks, who investigated the bribery case for the FBI:
The applicants claimed they were harmed by the 1980s-era decision and requested that the agency reconsider refunding money to customers, adding 23 years of compounded interest. Waldron estimated the refund would amount to about $16 billion, or approximately $16,000 per customer. The applicants asked the agency to nullify a 1989 order from a telephone rate case that required Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. to reinvest $30 million into infrastructure. OCC decided then that the company, which AT&T later acquired, received too much revenue because the federal government lowered corporate tax rates in 1986.
The applicants say this instance of bribery was worse than WorldCom, AIG, and Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme because it involved a public utility.
But AT&T’s lawyers argued the case falls outside of the Corporation Commission’s jurisdiction.
AT&T attorney: Bribed votes count. from @pmonies https://t.co/Utr1ugqlWE
— Don Mecoy (@Mecoy) November 4, 2015
Attorney Curt Long said the case was closed and the commission shouldn’t focus on “ancient history.” He also accused the petitioners’ attorney Andrew Waldron of putting on a “mini-trial” and not proving why the OCC should reopen the case, according to The Oklahoman’s Paul Monies:
"We heard a nice, 35-minute historical recitation of a very sordid chapter in commission history, complete with name-calling, accusations, insinuations and innuendo, and even some mean statements about the legal staff at the attorney general's office," Long said. "The fact is that no amount of that activity can clothe this commission with jurisdiction that it does not have." Abby Dillsaver with the attorney general's office said reopening the Southwestern Bell case would put all of the commission's orders on a slippery slope. She said it would signal to both ratepayers and utilities that orders could be reopened at any time, even after an unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court. "The knife is going to slice both ways, and it would result in chaos and corrode the public trust in orders issued by this commission," Dillsaver said.
It’s not the first time the Corporation Commission has looked at this. They decided not to reopen the case in 1997 and 2003. The three-member regulatory body didn’t vote on the motion to dismiss, and agreed to take the matter under advisement.
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