Procedural History
On October 13, 2006, UCAN filed its formal complaint with the Commission. MCI filed its Answer and Affirmative Defenses to the Complaint on December 4, 2006. From December 19, 2006 through April 25, 2007, UCAN and MCI exchanged information, both formally and informally, and submitted timely joint status reports to the assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).
On May 3, 2007, the ALJ issued a ruling3 setting a Prehearing Conference (PHC) for May 9, 2007. At the PHC, the parties reported on their ongoing efforts to resolve the matter. The ALJ commended both parties on their cooperation and diligence, and encouraged them to continue their dialogue to work out the claims. On May 16, 2007, UCAN and MCI advised the ALJ that they would continue both to exchange information and to renew their efforts to resolve the case without the need for additional hearings. From mid-May until July 20, 2007, the parties communicated extensively and jointly resolved UCAN's remaining issues through the Settlement Agreement submitted for Commission approval.
3 The ruling noted that the two remaining issues in the proceeding were: (1) a further explanation by MCI of the CSR crediting process, particularly to what extent the process was automated and to what extent CSRs had to manually trigger and input the credits; and (2) MCI's policies and procedures regarding reporting of repeat complaints to its resolution departments.
