ACA remains at the forefront of a longtime effort to clarify application and enforcement of the TCPA so businesses can successfully comply with it. Here’s what has happened since the D.C. Circuit’s decision in ACA Int’l v. FCC came out last year.
11/25/2019 9:00
More than a year has passed since the deadline imposed by the Federal Communications Commission for interested parties to submit comments on several issues related to the interpretation and implementation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. And over four years have passed since ACA International appealed the FCC’s 2015 Omnibus Ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging several aspects of the Omnibus Ruling, including the FCC’s definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS or autodialer), reassigned number issues and revocation of consent.
The 2015 Omnibus Ruling was the FCC’s attempt to clarify various aspects of the TCPA’s general bar against using automated dialing devices to make uninvited calls; but in reality, it fell well short of its proposed goal line to curtail frivolous lawsuits.
However, in March 2018, as ACA’s members likely recall quite vividly, the D.C. Circuit rejected the FCC’s interpretation of an autodialer as overly broad, arbitrarily vague and “utterly unreasonable.” The court also struck down the entirety of the FCC decision as it related to reassigned wireless numbers. Our industry momentum at that time was surging.
That momentum has been somewhat thwarted by the FCC’s lack of action in response to the D.C. Circuit’s decision.
And since that decision, courts continue to grapple with the age-old argument of what constitutes an ATDS pursuant to the TCPA.
Meanwhile, the FCC appears to be content with this unsettled landscape and has instead turned its attention to other matters, such as illegal robocalls.
Unwittingly caught up in this indecisive spectacle are ACA’s members, who are simply trying to compliantly run their businesses.
Catch up on how ACA’s Industry Advancement Fund has kept ACA and its members at the forefront of this longtime effort to clarify application and enforcement of the TCPA so that businesses can successfully comply in this month’s Collector magazine, “The (Slow) Race to Clarify the TCPA,” written by Corporate Counsel Kari Barber.
ACA International’s efforts to proactively support the accounts receivable management industry are part of the association’s Industry Advancement Fund and are made possible by funding through ACA’s Industry Advancement Fund. If you want to read more about the most recent significant judicial decisions involving the industry, ACA members can always find concise case summaries on the program’s website or by subscribing to ACA Daily and Collector magazine.
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