Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR Previously, the Federal Communications Commission fined AT&T (~$57M) and Verizon (~$47M) for failing to protect customer location data, leading both sides to demand a review, asserting the fines violated their right to a jury trial.
While the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled in favor of AT&T, the 2nd Circuit ruled in favor of the government over Verizon.
The Supreme Court is now being asked to step in and make a final ruling that will apply to both, though the decision won’t likely arrive until the summer of 2026.
After it determined Verizon and AT&T had willfully violated the law by failing to protect customer location data, the FCC previously ordered AT&T and Verizon to pay roughly $57 million and $47 million, respectively. While both companies paid the fines as expected, they also opted to sue over the matter independently. Now the Supreme Court is getting involved as well, as reported by The Hill.
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For background, two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled the SEC’s in-house civil fraud enforcement system violated a defendant’s right to a jury trial. Guided by this decision, Verizon and AT&T hoped to prove that the FCC’s penalty system was also unconstitutional.
While both Verizon and AT&T took the matter to court, two different outcomes were reached. The US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled the FCC system was unconstitutional, siding with AT&T. Verizon’s case went before the 2nd Circuit, where the courts ruled in favor of the FCC. Now the Trump administration, AT&T, and Verizon have agreed that the Supreme Court should take up the two cases and resolve the issue for good.
For its part, the FCC argues that its setup is different from the one the courts struck down for the SEC and that removing its ability to demand large fines would deprive it of “one of its most important regulatory remedies and severely impair the agency’s ability to enforce federal communications law”.
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