Supreme Court denies Verizon's request for $47 million FCC fine refund

The Supreme Court issued an order refusing Verizon's request for a $47 million reimbursement of a fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission, providing no rationale for the denial. This ruling eliminates any chance for Verizon to seek a lower-court review of the penalty. The carriers—Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile—had been fined a combined $196 million in 2024 for providing real-time device-location data to aggregators without customer consent.

While AT&T and T-Mobile persist in challenging the fines on legal grounds, the Court previously ruled 8-1 that the FCC’s enforcement procedure did not violate the Seventh Amendment because defendants could have pursued jury trials by refusing to pay. Justice Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenter. Verizon, which reported $34.3 billion in quarterly revenue and $3.9 billion in net income, now argues the fine itself lacks legal justification and seeks another opportunity to contest it.