Federal Trade Commission Chairman Timothy J. Muris abruptly canceled a press conference Thursday afternoon that reportedly would have called for the FTC to concede anti-trust clearance review of all media, communications, publishing and entertainment industry mergers to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The agreement between the FTC and the DOJ would have precluded the FTC from involvement in the upcoming merger review of AT&T and Comcast.

Muris set a 1 p.m. press conference in Washington to announce the deal struck between himself and Charles A. James, assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. According to press accounts and sources contacted by internetnews.com, Muris, a Bush appointee, and James had been meeting "secretly" for some time to hammer out the details of the deal.

Several FTC commissioners were only notified of the agreement late Tuesday. They were allegedly told by Muris that he didn't believe he had to inform them of the process. Nor did Muris believe that such a radical change in the FTC operations had to be brought to a vote.

By mid-morning, however, as news of Muris' plan spread, opposition began to mount. A source told internetnews.com that FTC Commissioner Mozelle W. Thompson planned to oppose Muris' move that would have reversed six decades of precedent at the FTC.

Under the Muris-James proposal, the FTC would retain anti-trust review over such industries as health care, oil, natural gas, electric power, computer hardware and biotechnology companies. The FTC would give up anti-trust review of all mergers involving Internet, software, telecommunications and entertainment companies.

Reporters calling in to the FTC for the 1 p.m. press conference were put on hold for more than 30 minutes before they were told the conference was cancelled. No reason was given for the cancellation and the FTC spokesman took no questions on the matter.

According to Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, the proposed realignment of anti-trust review between the FTC and the DOJ "threatens consumer and citizen interests." Chester characterized the FTC as more "bi-partisan and more independent" than the DOJ.

"The FTC is especially expert in media mergers involving new digital networks, as it demonstrated in the AOL TW review," Chester said. "Now authority for media mergers will be in the hands of a politically appointed official who has shown, in the Microsoft case, that DOJ is unwilling to develop serious policy approaches to ensure open and competitive digital markets."

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