Supreme Court Backs FCC Enforcement Authority

On June 4, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in FCC v. AT&T, Inc. and Verizon Communications, Inc. v. FCC, a case that challenged the Federal Communications Commission's ability to hold telecommunications companies accountable for violating federal law. The ruling addresses a fundamental question: Can the FCC investigate a carrier, find it violated the law, and assess a penalty—all without first convening a jury trial? The answer, the Court holds eight-to-one, is Yes—but with a significant qualification that substantially shapes what FCC enforcement orders may mean going forward. The case arose from a concrete harm: after investigating AT&T and Verizon's handling of customer location data, the FCC concluded that both carriers had sold that data to third parties—including law enforcement—without adequate safeguards, in violation of federal privacy rules. The FCC assessed penalties of roughly $57 million against AT&T and $47 million against Verizon. The carriers paid—then challenged the process as unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court rejected that challenge. In doing so, the Court accepted the government's recharacterization of FCC forfeiture orders (monetary penalties for violations of the Communications Act or FCC rules) as essentially non-binding—a reading that Justice Clarence Thomas argues in his dissent could, in practice, hamstring FCC enforcement going forward.