Consumer Protection Enforcement Should Protect Consumers Without Creating Unpredictable Liability

The recent $25 billion judgment against Meta in New Mexico has put a spotlight on a growing challenge in consumer protection enforcement: how to protect consumers while ensuring that penalties remain fair, predictable, and tied to actual harm. This question becomes even more important as 47 other states, along with DC, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, effectively settled the same claims for a lesser aggregate total of $17 billion.

Strong consumer protections matter. Consumers deserve clear rights, meaningful safeguards, and accountable enforcement when companies fail to meet their obligations. Businesses also need clear rules of the road so they can comply, innovate, and continue delivering products and services that consumers value.

That balance is harder to achieve when consumer protection laws allow uncapped statutory damages or penalties that can be multiplied across large numbers of alleged violations and then get duplicated across multiple states. We’ve written previously about the problems with such approaches. In those cases, liability can quickly become disconnected from the underlying conduct or any demonstrated consumer harm. The result is an enforcement environment that can become more punitive than practical, creating outsized risk for businesses without necessarily delivering better outcomes for consumers.

The risk is even greater when multiple enforcement actions can proceed independently and produce overlapping penalties for the same or similar conduct. State attorneys general play an important role in protecting consumers, and their enforcement authority should remain a central part of any sound consumer protection framework. But that authority should be exercised within a structure that promotes coordination, transparency, and proportionality, but not attempts at jackpot justice.

A fragmented enforcement landscape creates uncertainty for companies operating across state lines. It can also make compliance more difficult by forcing businesses to navigate competing expectations, duplicative proceedings, and unpredictable liability. That uncertainty does not serve consumers, and it does not support the innovation and investment that drive the modern economy.

Policymakers should pursue consumer protection enforcement frameworks that are clear, consistent, and workable. That means preserving strong public enforcement by experienced agencies and state attorneys general while ensuring that penalties are proportionate, cure periods are available where appropriate, and damages do not become untethered from actual harm. It also means encouraging greater coordination among enforcement authorities to avoid duplicative sanctions and promote consistent outcomes, unlike what occurred in this case.

The Meta decision showcases a system where excessive and overlapping penalties undermine credible enforcement. A balanced approach better protects consumers while giving businesses the certainty they need to comply and responsibly support continued innovation.

About the author

Sean Heather

Sean Heather is Senior Vice President for International Regulatory Affairs and Antitrust.

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