Comcast’s plans to swallow its largest rival Time Warner Cable has suffered another setback as the FCC announced Monday it would once again halt its “shot clock,” which is the 180-day time period during which the agency seeks to complete its review of proposed mergers.

In a letter published on Monday, the [company]FCC[/company] said it had to impose the delay upon discovering that Time Warner Cable improperly classified more than 7,000 documents as attorney-client privileged.

The misclassification, which the FCC says it discovered in early December, meant that the agency has not been able to properly review aspects of the proposed merger, which has significant implications for consumers and for both the telecom and entertainment industries.

As the FCC explained, the delay has meant that the agency had to conduct portions of its review process anew:

The effect of these late disclosures has been to slow down the Commission’s review of the Comcast/TWC/Charter transaction, in particular because…