New Mexico is asking a state judge to impose between $35 billion and $40 billion in penalties on Meta Platforms after a jury found that Facebook misled consumers about how their personal information was handled. The case, which grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, has now moved from the question of liability to the much more consequential issue of how much Meta could ultimately be required to pay.
The request was made during a hearing in Santa Fe on October 1, where attorneys representing New Mexico and Meta presented sharply different views on an appropriate financial penalty. The jury had previously found that Facebook violated the state’s consumer protection law more than 43 million times. The exact amount of the penalty will now be determined by Judge Francis Mathew, who presided over the trial.
The lawsuit dates back to 2021 and focuses on Facebook’s statements about privacy, data sharing, misinformation, hate speech and the company’s treatment of third-party applications. The legal dispute gained renewed significance after the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that personal information associated with as many as 87 million Facebook users had been obtained through a third-party application without their consent. Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting company, later became closely associated with political advertising surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
At trial, jurors considered 29 statements made by Facebook and its leadership concerning the company’s practices. They determined that 26 of those statements were misleading. According to the findings, the alleged violations included representations about how users could control their information, whether personal data was provided to advertisers, and whether Facebook bought or sold users’ information. The jury also found that statements concerning the company’s handling of misinformation and hate speech were deceptive.
The verdict also addressed Facebook’s representations about its Community Standards and the way those rules were applied. The state argued that the company had made assurances about consistent enforcement while allegedly maintaining exceptions or different treatment for certain groups and situations. Jurors additionally found statements concerning Facebook’s response to third-party applications that had accessed large quantities of user information to be misleading. Those statements included assurances about investigations, audits, developer bans and notifications to affected users.
New Mexico’s consumer protection law allows a judge to impose a civil penalty of as much as $5,000 for each willful violation. Applying that maximum figure to all of the violations identified by the jury could theoretically produce a penalty far above the amount currently being sought by the state. Instead, New Mexico’s attorneys have proposed a $35 billion to $40 billion award, arguing that the figure would remain substantial while avoiding potential constitutional concerns surrounding an excessively large penalty.
Randi McGinn, an attorney representing New Mexico, told the court that imposing the full statutory amount for every violation could raise due process concerns. She nevertheless argued that the final penalty should be large enough to have a meaningful financial impact on Meta. “This court should speak to Meta in the only language it understands, which is money, and the value of its stock price,” McGinn said. She characterized the proposed $35 billion to $40 billion figure as roughly one-fifth of the potential penalties that could theoretically result from the jury’s findings.
Judge Mathew also questioned the consequences of taking a case through a full jury trial. During the hearing, he said, “Well, when the parties go to trial, they roll the dice. They have to accept the consequences of their decision to go to trial, do they not?” His comments came as lawyers on both sides disputed how the jury’s findings should translate into financial penalties.
Meta has argued for a considerably lower figure. In court filings, the company asked the judge to limit the penalties to $3.45 billion. Meta maintained that the state’s requested amount did not correspond to the conduct examined during the trial and argued that the evidence did not establish that consumers had actually been misled in the manner alleged by New Mexico. The company also disputed the state’s characterization of its data practices, including the claim that Facebook sold users’ personal information.
Meta’s attorneys also challenged the size of New Mexico’s proposed penalty on constitutional grounds. During the hearing, Meta lawyer Matt Nicholson described the state’s request as an “astronomical penalty that would obviously violate a host of constitutional provisions.” The company has maintained that statements presented at trial were taken out of context and that Facebook had acknowledged shortcomings in its approach to privacy and misinformation rather than deliberately deceiving users.
The dispute is significant because the jury’s decision and the eventual penalty involve two separate stages of the legal process. The September verdict established liability and the number of violations identified by jurors, but it did not determine the final financial consequences. State law gives the judge discretion over the penalty, meaning the maximum statutory amount does not automatically become the amount Meta must pay.
