The Supreme Court’s decision in FCC v. ATT, Inc. is a major win for federal agency enforcement and a significant development for the telecom industry. In a ruling issued June 4, 2026, the Court held that the Federal Communications Commission’s forfeiture process does not violate the Seventh Amendment, allowing the agency to continue imposing substantial monetary penalties through its existing administrative framework.

The dispute stemmed from FCC enforcement actions seeking roughly $57 million from ATT and $47 million from Verizon over alleged failures to safeguard customer location data.

The Supreme Court in early June handed the Federal Communications Commission an important administrative-law win, rejecting a challenge by ATT and Verizon to the agency’s process for imposing telecom fines. The ruling preserves a key piece of the FCC’s enforcement toolkit and, just as notably, suggests the Court is not prepared to automatically extend its recent hostility toward some forms of agency adjudication into every regulatory setting.

The dispute centered on whether the FCC’s in-house enforcement mechanism for monetary penalties runs afoul of constitutional limits that have drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday delivered a significant administrative-law win to the Federal Communications Commission, ruling 8-1 that the agency may continue using its longstanding internal enforcement process to pursue monetary penalties against regulated companies. The decision rejects a constitutional challenge brought by wireless carriers including Verizon and ATT in a case arising from FCC investigations into whether carriers failed to adequately protect customers’ location information.

At issue was the FCC’s two-step penalty framework.

The Supreme Court on June 4 delivered an important win for the Federal Communications Commission, holding 8-1 that the agency may continue imposing data-privacy fines on telecommunications carriers through its existing enforcement framework. The ruling rejects a constitutional challenge brought by ATT and Verizon and leaves intact a key tool the FCC uses to police carrier handling of customer information.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared hesitant during oral argument to embrace ATT and Verizon’s effort to upend the Federal Communications Commission’s in-house penalty process, a challenge that could have reshaped how federal agencies pursue civil enforcement.

The dispute stems from FCC allegations that the telecom companies failed to adequately protect customers’ location data, allowing sensitive information to be sold or accessed without sufficient safeguards.