The prestigious company T-Mobile will pay $60 million for failing to disclose or take action against unauthorized access to internal data. This happened after its merger with Sprint in 2020, according to Forbes.
The fine is by far the largest ever imposed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. T-Mobile’s alleged failure to disclose violated a national security agreement required for the company’s $26 billion merger with Sprint, The Wall Street Journal reported.
T-Mobile failed to address the unauthorized access to sensitive data and did not promptly report it, violating the agreement. The violations delayed CFIUS’ efforts to address the potential damage to national security assets caused by the data incident.
A spokesperson for the telecommunications company told Forbes that they experienced technical issues when integrating with Sprint. These affected the information shared from law enforcement requests.
CFIUS does not typically name the companies at the center of its infringement disputes. That makes its settlement with T-Mobile unusual and could put other large companies on alert to comply with their contractual obligations.
T-Mobile shares appeared largely unaffected by news of the deal. The company closed up a fraction of a percent at $196.49.
Background
T-Mobile has dealt with data issues before, although data-related incidents in recent years did affect customers. In this case, consumers were not affected by the security breach.
For example, in January of last year, around 37 million T-Mobile customers had their personal data compromised following a cyberattack that accessed names, addresses and dates of birth.
The telecom company also paid $350 million as part of a 2022 settlement. Back then, customers were hit by data breaches totaling more than $76 million.
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