I'd love to be proved ignorant on this and see some unrelated-to (and therefore incorruptible-by) enforcement agency slap the fuck out of Ms. Corrupt Lobbyist, but I'm doubtful.
It might be possible to do something about the friends/family issue with careful crafting of the laws - or maybe I'm just a closet monarchist. ;)
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(that) any official in a position within a government body, whether elected or appointed, which regulates a particular industry, area of industry, or the laws and compliance of said industry, may not take a position within any company that benefited directly from any regulatory or oversight decision of the oversight body within the last 5 years on any case where the stated company or organizations competitive status with respect to monopolies, anti-trust, or anti-competitive business environment was considered.
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This would mean that anyone who was in a position of oversight for a given industry and who had to consider, directly, regulations which may or may not benefit a particular company may not accept a position with that company for at least 5 years after their departure from that official position.
You can be sure that this argument will be accompanied by large donations to lobbyists, and by outrage among all government regulators who were expecting to wind up in the industry that they regulate (and that they frequently came from).
If you look farther, I am sure that more specific rulings in favor of ABC and Time Warner can be found. Let's see. For instance see http://seekingalpha.com/article/119975-time-warner-cable-fcc... in favor of Time Warner.
Let me give you an important example. David Bois won his anti-trust case against Microsoft, and then proposed a penalty that was a slap on the wrist. He turned around, and then was handed an endless stream of revenue from the SCO case. There is evidence that said legal proceeding was funded behind the scenes by Microsoft. Coincidence? I think not.
As for the argument that I said you would face, I didn't make it up. That is the bog standard argument that is always trotted out to support the standard practice of having regulators come from, and then return to, the industries that they regulate. In practice people really do get swayed by the argument that a person who knows the industry is at an advantage in understanding it well enough to get involved in regulation. Either that or they pretend to be while accepting donations, but it works out to the same thing in the end.