FCC Finally Issues Omnibus Ruling On TCPA Litigation And Compliance

Ambiguities in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) have been a recent topic of interest. This past week, the FCC finally released the long awaited TCPA Omnibus Declaratory Ruling and Order resolving 21 petitions on many issues associated with the enforcement and interpretation of the Act. As the authors note in yesterday's Reed Smith Client Alert, the Ruling unfairly places legitimate businesses in the same category with the telemarketing abusers that the Act was intended to deter. The FCC has an apparent lack of concern for most industries' wellbeing when it comes to mitigating the recent wave of TCPA class action litigation. ACA International has already filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – the same day the FCC's Ruling was released. Stay tuned for further news on this and other appeals that will undoubtedly be filed.