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The
penalty imposed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the
U.S. (CFIUS) is tied to violations of a mitigation agreement
that German-controlled T-Mobile inked with the panel as part of
its $23 billion acquisition of U.S.-based Sprint Corp in 2020.
In the case of T-Mobile, which is majority owned by Deutsche
Telekom, the unauthorized access to sensitive data occurred in
2020 and 2021, U.S. officials said.
T-Mobile said in a statement 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."
The size of the fine, and CFIUS's unprecedented decision to make
it public, show the committee is taking a more muscular approach
to enforcement as it seeks to deter future violations.
"The $60 million penalty announcement highlights the committee's
commitment to ramping up CFIUS enforcement by holding companies
accountable when they fail to comply with their obligations,"
one of the U.S. officials said, adding that transparency around
enforcement actions incentivizes other companies to comply with
their obligations.
The committee has issued six penalties in the last 18 months,
triple the number it levied between 1975 and 2022, the officials
told reporters, noting that penalties range from $100,000 to $60
million.
The failure of T-Mobile to report the incidents promptly delayed
CFIUS' efforts to investigate and mitigate any potential harm to
U.S. national security, they added, without providing further
details.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Eric Beech, Marguerita
Choy and Jamie Freed)
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