A federal court said the Ga. PSC erred in interpreting some phras...

upholding NuVox’s right to reject a BellSouth request to audit interconnection traffic. The interconnection pact provided that BellSouth could do an annual traffic audit at its own expense to verify NuVox was using its enhanced extended loops (EELs) primarily for local exchange traffic. But when BellSouth in March 2004 gave NuVox the required 30 days’ notice of an audit, NuVox balked and went to the PSC. It told the PSC an FCC June 2002 order required that BellSouth first “demonstrate a concern” that NuVox was violating EEL usage terms, then hire an independent 3rd party to do the audit. The PSC sided with NuVox, approving independent audits but only on selected EELs where it felt BellSouth showed grounds for concern. It added the “demonstrate concern” and “independent audit” curbs to the companies’ contract. When the PSC refused to reconsider, BellSouth went to federal court, claiming the PSC imposed unlawful, unjustified limits on its contractual right to audit NuVox EEL traffic. The federal court agreed in Case 1:04-CV-2790-WSD. It said the 2002 FCC audit order provided general guidelines to states for regulating interconnection audits, but in language clearly casting them as suggestions, not mandates. The PSC also raised a state law argument, that Ga. contract law automatically incorporates all other applicable laws into an agreement unless unwanted legal provisions explicitly are excluded. But the court said the PSC interpretation of state contract law would deny BellSouth and CLECs their federal right to accept or reject portions of federal law by what they choose to write into their agreement.