The U.S. Supreme Court handed federal regulators two important victories, preserving enforcement tools that many companies had hoped the justices might narrow. In one decision, the Court ruled for the Federal Communications Commission in its dispute with AT&T and Verizon over agency-imposed fines. In the other, the Court unanimously sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission, affirming the agency’s ability to seek broad disgorgement in enforcement actions involving investor fraud.

Taken together, the rulings stand out because they cut against the recent trend of heightened judicial skepticism toward administrative agencies. At a time when regulated parties have found traction with arguments targeting agency structure, statutory authority, and remedies, the Court signaled that at least some long-used enforcement mechanisms remain on solid footing.

For the FCC, the practical effect is significant. The decision preserves the agency’s ability to impose and defend monetary penalties in disputes with major telecommunications carriers, including AT&T and Verizon. For companies operating in heavily regulated sectors, that means enforcement exposure remains real, and challenges to agency penalty authority may face a steeper climb than some expected.

The SEC ruling may have even broader downstream consequences. By backing disgorgement authority in a case involving Ongkaruck Sripetch, the Court confirmed that the agency can continue pursuing recovery of ill-gotten gains as a central remedy in civil enforcement. That matters not only in securities fraud cases, but also in how defendants assess settlement risk, litigation strategy, and reserve-setting. Disgorgement often drives the economics of an SEC case, sometimes more than the civil penalty itself.

For litigators, these decisions reinforce the importance of remedy-focused briefing. Even where broader constitutional or administrative-law arguments are in play, courts may still preserve specific enforcement tools if they are grounded in statutory text and established practice. Appellate counsel and trial teams defending agency actions should take note of the Court’s willingness to distinguish between sweeping attacks on the administrative state and narrower questions about particular remedies.

For in-house counsel and compliance teams, the message is straightforward: enforcement leverage remains intact. Telecommunications providers, public companies, broker-dealers, and other regulated entities should not assume that recent anti-agency momentum will automatically translate into reduced monetary exposure. Internal investigations, disclosure controls, and remediation decisions should continue to be evaluated with the expectation that both fines and disgorgement remain viable remedies.

More broadly, the rulings suggest that while the Supreme Court remains open to policing agency overreach, it is not uniformly dismantling the enforcement architecture on which federal regulators rely. That is a meaningful distinction for practitioners tracking administrative litigation and advising clients facing government scrutiny.