Verizon, T-Mobile Want Refunds on Location Data Fines

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2026 – T-Mobile and Verizon are beginning the process of seeking refunds on multimillion-dollar fines they paid the Federal Communications Commission, arguing they were effectively misled into thinking the penalties were mandatory.

In last month’s decision in FCC v. AT&T, the Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s authority to issue fines, but on the logic that companies weren’t actually required to pay until the Justice Department sued to collect and initiated a jury trial.

Learn about America250 / Telecom150

                        Learn about America250 / Telecom150
                    

The three national mobile carriers were challenging FCC fines that collectively totaled nearly $200 million, which they paid under the longstanding impression that that was necessary before mounting a legal challenge in the D.C. Circuit. The Supreme Court declined to endorse that requirement, and held it was lawful for companies to simply wait and raise legal issues during a DOJ collection action.

With that decision in hand, two of the carriers want a shot at recovering tens on millions they say they wouldn't have paid if they knew they had the choice.

T-Mobile asked the Supreme Court on June 22 to remand the D.C. Circuit’s decision against the company on the issue, giving the company the chance to argue it deserved a refund on the $92 million it paid. The carrier argued the forfeitures were understood to compel payment in 30 days regardless of whether a company wanted to challenge a penalty.

“The forfeiture orders here purport to adjudicate liability and compel payment — exactly what AT &T holds, and the government now agrees, the orders cannot do,” wrote Helgi Walker , a longtime telecom attorney representing T-Mobile. The documents, she said, “issued against a legal backdrop in which regulated entities like [T-Mobile] uniformly understood FCC forfeiture orders to require payment.”

For the same violation — not adequately vetting third parties before selling customer location data — AT&T was fined $57 million and Verizon was fined nearly $47 million.

Verizon submitted a similar request Monday. The company had joined AT&T in pushing the issue to the Supreme Court, and the Second Circuit decision in which it lost to the FCC was simply affirmed in the high court’s decision.

Verizon wanted its case remanded as well, as the issue of whether the carriers deserved refunds was not addressed by the Supreme Court. The carriers asked for one, but Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 8-1 majority that the court wasn’t taking a side on the issue.

The Supreme Court’s “current disposition — a flat ‘affirm’ — risks obstructing Verizon from raising the very issue this Court left open,” former Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall wrote in the company’s petition.

AT&T hasn't asked the high court to act on the refund issue. It will have a chance to make its case to the Fifth Circuit, Wall pointed out, because the Supreme Court's decision remanded a judgement from that circuit that had sided with AT&T.

While the Supreme Court said FCC fines were nonbinding, the alternative was eliminating its fining authority altogether, something the agency told the court would have left many of its consumer protection rules with little to no enforcement mechanism at all.

It’s also not clear how frequently companies will elect to go the route on nonpayment going forward, telecom attorneys said last week. The DOJ is likely to back the FCC up in cases of big fines, and it can be difficult to stare down a regulator that controls the lifeblood of one’s business, they said.