B. Background
Applicants announced their planned merger in late 1999, and filed this application-as well as applications in other states, with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with the European Union and with the United States Department of Justice-soon after the announcement.
WorldCom and Sprint called off their planned merger on July 13, 2000, after the United States Attorney General sued in federal court to block the merger and the European Union voted to reject it. The announcement came just two weeks after this Commission had held and completed a 13-day evidentiary hearing on the merger.
Intervenors participated actively in every aspect of the proceeding: in various combinations, they protested the original application, appeared at prehearing conferences, conducted discovery, briefed and argued motions, filed testimony, participated extensively in evidentiary hearings, filed post-hearing briefs and comments on the draft decision leading up to D.01-02-040, and participated in the post-decision Application for Rehearing.
Intervenors played a substantial role in creating a record worthy of re-use in other proceedings. TURN spent considerable time developing a record related to Applicants' products, services and pricing, especially for low volume callers. UCAN focused on developing an analysis of WorldCom's service quality. Greenlining/LIF stressed issues related to WorldCom's service to low-income and minority customers. It was because of the excellence and comprehensiveness of record in the case that the Commission took extraordinary steps to make that record known and available to participants in other proceedings.
As we noted at the time, a merger inquiry, especially one of the importance of the WorldCom-Sprint merger application,
often examines, among other things, the applicants' past business practices in an attempt to predict how they will operate as a combined entity in the future[. Thus], the evidence adduced is often relevant to more than just the proposed transaction. Such is the case here: the record contains much information relevant to whether Applicants operate in the public interest. We do not wish to squander that record nor have Intervenors' efforts in developing it go unrewarded. Nor do we feel we can ignore the evidence before us to the extent it raises questions about whether Applicants fully disclose their prices, adequately serve low income and low volume customers, and deliver appropriate customer service. After all, both Sprint and WorldCom will continue business operations in California despite the merger's termination.3
We also stated that our dismissal of the merger application should not be construed as ruling out the possibility of an award of compensation:
Nothing in this decision shall preclude any party already deemed eligible for intervenor compensation from seeking such compensation in this proceeding, or, to the extent this proceeding's record is used in other proceedings, in those other proceedings, provided there is no duplicate compensation.
* * *
Intervenors are free to initiate complaints related to the allegations they make here, and to seek compensation related to their efforts in this case.4
Thus, we anticipated that Intervenors would seek-and receive-compensation for their efforts. We now turn to the requirements for such compensation, and to the question of our authority to award it under the facts of this case.
3 D.01-02-040, 2001 Cal. PUC Lexis 142, at *5 (emphasis added).
4 Id. at *28 & *33 (Finding of Fact 10 and Ordering Paragraph 4) (emphasis added).
