Verizon wins court lottery in net-neutrality suit

A judicial panel randomly chose the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for litigation of the Federal Communications Commission’s net-neutrality rules, handing a victory to Verizon, which is trying to overturn the regulations.

Four media-reform groups have also sued the FCC over the rules, arguing that they do not go far enough. Those groups, however, filed their cases in different circuits around the country.

All of the challenges will be consolidated and heard before the D.C. Circuit.

 The same court threw out the FCC’s attempt to enforce the principle of net neutrality against Comcast last year. That setback led the FCC to adopt its current rules.

"This is a close case to begin with, and the DC Circuit is not a good forum for the FCC," said Andrew Schwartzman, a lawyer who is representing three of the groups suing to expand the scope of the rules.

But the FCC vowed to fight for its rules, regardless of the venue.

“The FCC stands ready to defend its open Internet order in any court of appeals,” an FCC spokesman said.

The FCC’s rules prevent Internet service providers from discriminating between two similar content providers by slowing down or speeding up access to their sites. Wireless carriers are banned from blocking lawful websites or applications that compete with their services.

This post was updated at 4:34 p.m.

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