Monthly TCPA Digest — January 2021

We are pleased to present our latest Monthly TCPA Digest, providing insights and news related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). This month, in our Regulatory Update, we cover FCC efforts to meet Congressionally imposed TRACED Act deadlines. Since late December, the FCC has implemented several measures to combat illegal robocalls, including adopting an Order addressing the exemption of calls from the TCPA’s prior express consent requirement. It also adopted an Order imposing new obligations on voice service providers, which include implementing measures to prevent new and renewing customers from originating illegal calls on a provider’s network, requiring providers to respond to traceback requests, redressing improperly blocked calls, and taking a number of other important steps to address illegal robocalls and spoofing. That Order also expanded the existing safe harbor to permit network-based blocking, as long as certain criteria are met. The FCC also took other robocall-related actions discussed further in the Regulatory Update.

In this month’s Litigation Update, we report on the circuit split that has developed since the controversial Creasy v. Charter Communications ruling, in which the Eastern District of Louisiana district court concluded that, following the Barr v. AAPC decision, the courts lack authority to enforce the TCPA.

If you have suggestions for topics you’d like us to feature in this newsletter, or any questions about the content in this issue, please feel free to reach out to an attorney on Mintz’s TCPA and Consumer Calling Practice team.

In This Edition

Part I – TCPA Regulatory Update

• Busy End of 2020 and Early 2021 as FCC Continues to Combat Robocalls with Traced Act Implementation

• The FCC Takes Other Actions on Robocalls and Spoofing

Part II – TCPA Litigation Update

• The Newest TCPA Circuit Split – And It Started with Creasy

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