Supreme Court rejects Verizon’s bid to recover roughly $47 million FCC fine
The Court declined to reopen Verizon’s route to seek a refund of its location-data privacy penalty, while AT&T’s case continues.
By Renata Fuchs · Policy Reporter
· 3 min read
The Supreme Court has denied Verizon’s request to change a June ruling so it could seek a refund of a roughly $47 million FCC penalty. The August 17 order leaves Verizon without the return to the Second Circuit it sought, while AT&T retains further proceedings in a separate appellate case.
The Court gave no explanation for rejecting the request, according to Ars Technica and Broadband Breakfast. The order was a procedural decision, not a new ruling on whether Verizon’s sharing of customer device-location data violated federal privacy law.
Why did Verizon seek an FCC fine refund?
Verizon paid a penalty of about $46.9 million after the Federal Communications Commission pursued carriers over location-data practices. The agency’s 2024 enforcement actions against Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint totaled $196 million, Ars Technica reported.
According to the reporting, carriers supplied customer location information to data aggregators, which then sold it onward. The FCC’s case involved real-time device-location data provided without customer consent or without sufficient safeguards against unauthorized disclosure.
After losing its earlier Supreme Court case, Verizon argued that the FCC had treated its forfeiture order as requiring payment, only for the government to later tell the Court that such orders did not themselves compel it. Verizon asked the justices to affirm the earlier outcome but send the matter back to the Second Circuit, where it intended to pursue the refund question.
Mobile World Live reported that a footnote in the June opinion left open whether the particular orders sent to Verizon and AT&T may have misled the companies into paying, and whether refunds could be appropriate. The opinion did not specify a court or remedy for resolving that issue. By declining Verizon’s request to alter the disposition, the Court did not supply the remand Verizon wanted.
The June ruling and the different paths for Verizon and AT&T
On June 4, the Supreme Court rejected Verizon and AT&T’s Seventh Amendment challenge to the FCC’s penalty process by an 8-1 vote, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting. The Court held that carriers could refuse payment and receive a jury trial if the government later brought a collection action, according to Ars Technica.
The procedural posture now matters. Verizon’s loss in the Second Circuit was affirmed, rather than returned to that court. AT&T’s Fifth Circuit case, however, was reversed and remanded, preserving a venue for further arguments. Ars Technica reported that AT&T is continuing to argue that the data it sold is outside the protection of Section 222 of the Communications Act.
Verizon made a similar statutory argument, contending that Section 222’s privacy rules apply to call-location data but not device-location data. The Second Circuit rejected that reading, finding that the device data at issue qualified as Customer Proprietary Network Information and therefore triggered Section 222 protections.
Related litigation remains active. T-Mobile has sought Supreme Court review after T-Mobile and Sprint lost in the D.C. Circuit, while AT&T continues its Fifth Circuit proceedings. The Court’s latest order narrows Verizon’s immediate options without resolving the underlying Section 222 dispute across those cases.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
