A jury in Santa Fe found on Friday that Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) misled New Mexico consumers in a case tied to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, according to Reuters.
The verdict followed a two-week trial over a lawsuit New Mexico’s attorney general filed in 2021, as first reported by US News, which carried the Reuters wire copy.
What the jury found
The lawsuit accused Meta of misleading New Mexicans about how their personal data would be shared with third parties, how the company policed hate speech and misinformation, and whether some users received preferential treatment under its content policies, court filings cited by US News show.
Cambridge Analytica harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app, according to 2018 reporting cited by AOL. The New Mexico case centred on specific statements, including remarks by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and company blog posts, that the state said falsely implied users controlled their own data-sharing.
New Mexico attorney general Raul Torrez told a post-verdict press conference the trial revealed ‘in stark detail the way in which this company plays fast and loose with the rules,’ according to Investing.com. A Meta spokesperson said the company disagreed with the verdict and would continue to defend itself ‘against efforts to distort our record.’
The jury’s finding establishes liability only. Judge Francis Mathew will now determine the monetary penalty Meta must pay, per the same Investing.com report. Speculative figures circulating elsewhere, including one crypto-news outlet’s claim that Meta could face a $219bn fine, extrapolate from per-violation penalty maths and are not court-imposed or confirmed figures.
Second Santa Fe verdict in six months
This is Meta’s second adverse jury verdict in the New Mexico court in less than a year. In March 2026, a Santa Fe jury found Meta misled users about the safety of younger users on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, ordering $375m in civil penalties; a judge later directed a further $567m into a teen mental health fund, according to Investing.com.
Weeks after that ruling, Meta agreed a separate settlement with 47 US states, Washington DC and several territories, capped at roughly $16.7bn, resolving claims that Facebook and Instagram were designed to be addictive to children.
Meta’s attorneys argued at the Cambridge Analytica trial that the state’s evidence relied on statements taken out of context, according to AOL’s account of the proceedings.
Shares barely move
Despite the second liability finding this year, META shares closed at $747.82 on 25 September, down just 0.24% on the day the verdict was announced, market data show. The stock remains up 22.81% over the trailing 20 trading days, having ranged between $608.90 and $778.50 in that window.
Trading volume on the day was in line with the 20-day average, at 0.97 times normal levels, and FINRA’s short-sale ratio for META came in at 0.517 — within the 0.443 to 0.627 band seen over the prior two weeks, with no spike in short-selling tied to the news, according to FINRA data.
The muted reaction sits against a backdrop of rising Treasury yields, with the 10-year at 5.18% as of 24 September, up from 5.11% the prior session, per FRED data — a move that has done more to unsettle rate-sensitive growth names generally than Friday’s verdict did to Meta specifically.
Meta’s underlying business has kept expanding through the litigation. Revenue rose to $60.8bn in the second quarter of 2026, up from $56.3bn in the first, according to SEC filings. Net income for the same quarter came in at $15.8bn, down from $26.8bn in the first quarter, when a one-off gain had lifted the figure, the filings show.
What happens next
The penalty phase before Judge Mathew will determine how much Meta owes New Mexico, with any figure likely to face appeal regardless of size. Investors have, for now, treated the verdict as a legal cost still to be quantified rather than an immediate hit to earnings — a pattern consistent with the market’s response to March’s ruling, which was followed within weeks by the far larger multistate settlement.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Markets move quickly; figures are correct as sourced at the time of writing. Always do your own research before making financial decisions.
