A U.S. committee that scrutinizes foreign investment for national security risks fined T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) $60 million, its largest penalty ever, for failing to prevent and report unauthorized access to sensitive data, senior U.S. officials said.
The penalty imposed by the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) is tied to violations of a mitigation agreement that German-controlled T-Mobile signed with the panel as part of its $23 billion acquisition of Sprint Corp in 2020. The unauthorized access to sensitive data occurred in 2020 and 2021, according to U.S. officials, Reuters reported.
T-Mobile stated that it experienced technical issues during its post-merger integration with Sprint that affected “information shared from a small number of law enforcement information requests.” It stressed that the data never left the law enforcement community, was reported “in a timely manner” and was “quickly addressed.”
It is unusual for CFIUs to name a company that has been fined and this is the highest fine imposed by the agency to date, according to YahooFinance. It was imposed this year, although the exact timing was not specified. CFIUS said T-Mobile had not reported some violations quickly enough, which complicated the agency’s investigations.
“Several years ago, we experienced technical issues during our post-merger integration with Sprint that affected information shared from a small number of law enforcement information requests out of the hundreds of thousands that we process each year,” T-Mobile US stated. “This was not a breach or intrusion and no bad actor was involved.”
Reuters reported the size of the fine and CFIUS’s unprecedented decision to make it public, show the committee is taking a tougher approach to enforcement as it seeks to deter future violations.
The committee has issued six penalties in the last 18 months, triple the number it levied between 1975 and 2022, the officials said, noting that penalties range from $100,000 to $60 million.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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