Judge orders Meta to pay New Mexico $25 billion over data claims
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay the state $25 billion for misleading the public about Facebook user data, the BBC and Bloomberg Law reported. The case grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Meta says it will appeal.
A judge in New Mexico on Wednesday ordered Meta to pay the state $25 billion in civil penalties, according to the BBC, Bloomberg Law and Reuters. A jury had found that the company misled the public about how Facebook handled user data.
The case grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the BBC and Bloomberg Law reported. That political firm used data from millions of Facebook users. Reuters reported that New Mexico sued Meta in 2021.
Jurors found in September that 26 of 29 statements by the company and its leaders were misleading, Reuters reported. They found that Meta broke state law more than 43 million times, Bloomberg Law reported. At up to $5,000 per violation, the top penalty came to $219 billion, it said.
Judge Francis Mathew cut that to $25 billion. He wrote that the violations were "willful" and spanned "more than 11 years," the BBC reported.
The state had asked for $35 billion to $40 billion, Bloomberg Law reported. Meta urged a cap of $3.45 billion, Reuters reported. The company had argued that a penalty in the billions could violate its right to due process and its protection from excessive fines, according to Reuters.
Meta plans to appeal. Its top lawyer, CJ Mahoney, said the ruling made it "all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico," the BBC reported. "At its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech," he said, according to the BBC. Bloomberg Law reported that Mahoney said the company is "confident we will prevail on appeal."
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez praised the result. "Today's result makes clear that no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable," he said, according to the BBC. State law directs the money to the state's schools, Torrez said, according to Reuters.
Legal experts and analysts expect a long fight on appeal, Reuters reported. Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson, called the ruling costly but unlikely to hurt the company's value, Reuters reported.
What we know: A judge set Meta's penalty at $25 billion, and Meta plans to appeal.
What we don't: How long an appeal will take and whether the amount will stand.
Where outlets agree The BBC, Bloomberg Law and Reuters report that Judge Francis Mathew ordered Meta to pay New Mexico $25 billion, cut from a $219 billion maximum, and that Meta plans to appeal.
Where they differ Bloomberg Law reports that Meta reached an $18 billion settlement this summer with most of the country's attorneys general, while Reuters puts that multistate settlement at $17.1 billion, reached in August.