Supreme Court upholds FCC enforcement power in landmark data privacy case
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a significant victory to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday, June 4, 2026, ruling that the agency's internal system for imposing financial penalties—known as "forfeiture orders"—does not violate the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
The 8-1 decision effectively ends a protracted legal battle brought by AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ), who had challenged the agency’s ability to act as investigator, prosecutor, and judge in cases involving consumer data protection.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts clarified that the FCC's forfeiture orders do not constitute a final, binding resolution of a company's legal obligations.
Because the government must still initiate a separate enforcement action in federal court to collect fines if a company refuses to pay, the factual findings of the commission are not considered conclusive.
"Forfeiture orders issued by the FCC do not definitively resolve the parties' legal obligations," Roberts wrote. "And the commission's factual findings are not conclusive. It thus does not offend the Constitution for the commission to issue forfeiture orders without the involvement of a jury."
By maintaining that companies have the right to challenge the government's collection efforts in court—where a jury trial would be available—the Court found that the regulatory framework preserves the constitutional protections the telecom carriers argued were being bypassed.
The legal challenge stemmed from FCC fines totaling nearly $200 million issued to major wireless carriers for allegedly selling customer location data to third parties without proper consent.
The FCC had assessed $57 million against AT&T and nearly $47 million against Verizon, among other penalties for T-Mobile and the formerly independent Sprint.
While the companies initially paid the fines, they simultaneously pursued legal action to vacate them.
The cases reached the Supreme Court after a split decision in the lower courts: the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld the FCC's authority, while the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that the in-house assessment process deprived the companies of their jury trial rights.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter in the case.
The ruling reinforces the FCC’s long-standing enforcement structure and provides clarity on the limits of agency power in the wake of the Court's 2024 decision that restricted similar in-house proceedings at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).