Cybersecurity Policy Report, FTC-Facebook Privacy Case Remanded to District Court, (May 19, 2025)

By Lynn Stanton

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has reversed a district court’s order that would have allowed the Federal Trade Commission to move forward with an administrative proceeding alleging Facebook, now Meta Platforms, Inc., had violated a 2020 settlement agreement with the agency on privacy issues.

Facebook had sought an injunction against the FTC’s reopening the administrative proceeding, on the grounds that a 2020 consent order from the district court “governed the entire settlement and prevented unilateral modification,” Senior Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel of the appeals court, U.S.A. v. Facebook, Inc., No. 23-5280 (D.C. Cir. May 16, 2025).

“The district court, viewing the administrative and judicial processes as distinct, held that it lacked jurisdiction over the agency docket. We reverse and remand,” Judge Randolph wrote.

The case stems originally from a 2012 administrative case in which the FTC alleged that Facebook repeatedly failed to keep promises to consumers about the company's treatment of their personal information by sharing the information with third parties (CPR, Aug. 20, 2012).

In 2019 the FTC concluded Facebook had violated the 2012 settlement agreement and referred the case to the Justice Department, which filed a federal complaint and eventually reached a $5 billion settlement with Facebook that was approved by the district court (CPR, April 24, 2020). Injunctive relief, however, was made part of a revised FTC administrative order replacing the 2012 order (CPR, April 29, 2020).

In 2023, the FTC “issued a ‘show cause’ order proposing to modify the 2020 administrative order. Citing a recent assessor’s report finding deficiencies in Facebook’s adherence to the settlement and the agency’s authority to ‘modify’ any order, see 15 U.S.C. § 45(b), the FTC proposed a temporary pause on any new features and limits on Facebook’s ability to use data gathered from minors. Facebook filed no response with the agency; instead, it moved in district court to ‘enforce’ the original settlement by enjoining any further administrative proceedings,” Judge Randolph wrote.

The district court held that that the terms added to the 2012 FTC settlement order (attachment A to the stipulated order) was not a part of the 2020 stipulated order approved by the court and that it lacked jurisdiction over the FTC’s parallel 2020 administrative proceeding.

“While the two documents here are themselves not entirely clear, the surrounding context—most significantly, the accompanying district court opinion—shows that Attachment A was part of the Stipulated Order,” Judge Randolph wrote.

He cited the 2020 opinion’s repeated statements that the court order “directly imposed the injunctive relief contained in Attachment A”; the opinion’s description of “the entire settlement as contained within the ‘Stipulated Order,’ including provisions only listed in Attachment A”; and the opinion’s discussion of the court possessing continued jurisdiction “to adjudicate violations of both the Stipulated Order and Attachment A.”

“The FTC’s only countervailing evidence is that it engaged in a separate process to adopt Attachment A on its docket and that two commissioners dissented,” Judge Randolph wrote.

“Since the district court’s dismissal on jurisdictional grounds meant that it never reached the merits, we reverse and remand so that it may consider Facebook’s claims in the first instance,” he concluded.

Circuit Judges Neomi Rao and Justin R. Walker joined in the ruling.

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