New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $25bn in civil penalties over Facebook privacy claims, with 15 percent interest until paid

A state district judge in Santa Fe County on Wednesday ordered Meta Platforms to pay New Mexico $25 billion in civil penalties under the state Unfair Practices Act, according to the judgment filed at 10:51 a.m. local time and an announcement from Attorney General Raúl Torrez.

The order follows a jury verdict. According to the judgment, a 12-person jury found that Meta committed 43,899,725 willful violations of the act, almost all of them unfair or deceptive trade practices, across 26 public representations made between May 2010 and August 2021. The attorney general says the case arose from the Cambridge Analytica matter and also challenged the company's statements about its data practices and its handling of misinformation and hate speech.

Judge Francis J. Mathew set the penalty at $5,000 per violation, the most the act allows, which came to $219.5 billion. He reduced that to $25 billion and ordered interest at 15 percent a year until the penalty is paid in full. The court has not yet ruled on injunctive relief, and said it will take further briefing first.

"This is a historic day for New Mexico and for consumers across the country," Torrez said in the release. The attorney general's office says New Mexico pursued its claims in court rather than join a multistate settlement.

The judgment records that Facebook had 1,386,648 monthly active users in New Mexico as of June 30, 2020, in a state of about 2.1 million people. Meta's response was not part of the court filing or the attorney general's announcement.