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AT&T set for potential location-data payout as Verizon loses appeal
Verizon’s Supreme Court loss ended its bid to recover a $47 million FCC payment, while AT&T still has a live chance to recoup its $57 million fine.
AT&T could be in a better position than Verizon after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Verizon’s petition to recover FCC penalties tied to the sale of customer real-time location data to aggregators, according to Yahoo Finance. Verizon had paid $47 million to the FCC, and the denial ended its effort without explanation.
The dispute traces back to an FCC enforcement action from April 2024, when the agency fined four carriers a combined $196 million for selling location data to aggregators without meaningful consent. T-Mobile received the largest penalty at $80 million, followed by AT&T at $57 million, Verizon at $47 million, and Sprint at $12 million.
Carriers challenged the fines in court, including arguments that the FCC’s administrative process violated their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. In June, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against the carriers, holding they were not denied a jury trial because they could have refused to pay and forced the government to sue, at which point they could demand a jury, with Clarence Thomas the lone dissenter.
After losing the jury-trial argument, Verizon filed another petition, arguing the FCC mischaracterized its forfeiture order to induce payment and then shifted positions before the Supreme Court. The justices denied that petition without comment, while AT&T’s case followed a different procedural path, reaching the Fifth Circuit, where the question of whether it was misled into paying was left open after the Supreme Court reversed part of AT&T’s earlier outcome, according to Yahoo Finance.