Jeff Fusco/Comcast via AP Image DOJ will meet with the American Cable Association, according to the organization's CEO.
- The Department of Justice contacted the American Cable Association in December to set up a meeting "in the new year," ACA chief executive Matt Polka told Business Insider.
- The ACA represents more than 700 small video and broadband providers nationwide and is calling for an investigation into Comcast's 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal.
- Previous reporting by the New York Post stated that a formal civil investigative demand by the DOJ into Comcast had not been filed.
The Department of Justice contacted the American Cable Association in December to meet over the group's call for an investigation into Comcast's 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal, ACA chief executive Matt Polka told Business Insider.
The ACA represents more than 700 small video and broadband providers nationwide.
The New York Post previously reported that a formal civil investigative demand, or CID, had yet to been filed, and that its delay in doing so suggested no such investigation would come.
But Polka said the DOJ's request to meet with the ACA indicates the matter is still open. No date has been set for the meeting, though Polka said he thought it would be in the first quarter.
In November, the ACA sent a letter to the agency claiming that "the vertically integrated Comcast-NBCU poses a much greater threat to competition in markets across the country than the AT&T-Time Warner combination." The ACA urged the DOJ to to investigate the company given merger conditions set forth in 2011 expired in 2018.
Claims of anticompetitive behavior are taken seriously by the agency, Rob McDowell, a former FCC commissioner, told Business Insider.
The DOJ "is always researching markets and how they develop," McDowell said. "They also take allegations by market players seriously and do their best to investigate them to see if they are substantiated by the facts."
The DOJ has previously shown interest in vertical mergers and takes the view that they cause problems, said George A. Hay, a former official with the antitrust division of Justice Department. The DOJ has always been receptive to meeting with respected groups like the ACA, but the meeting isn't a given that an investigation will follow, Hay said.
Comcast declined comment to Business Insider. The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Following the ACA's letter to the DOJ in November, President Donald Trump, who has a history of animosity toward NBC, tweeted that the cable association claimed "Comcast routinely violates Antitrust Laws," causing Comcast shares to slip.
But challenges to vertical mergers have proven difficult. The DOJ lost its challenge to the $85 billion merger between AT&T and Time Warner. Federal judge Richard Leon, who approved the AT&T-Time Warner deal, also presided over the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger.