WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2026 – Federal judges should find that whistleblowers can’t sue for fraud under the False Claims Act, Array Digital Infrastructure argued Thursday.
An AT&T subsidiary has made a similar argument, and three conservative Supreme Court justices have signalled they’re open to it.
Array, which went by UScellular until it sold its wireless operations to T-Mobile, told a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge that she should dismiss a fraud suit against the company partly because the whistleblowers bringing the suit shouldn’t be able to sue in the first place.
The company said the False Claims Act, which mandates higher damages for fraudulently seeking government cash, violated the U.S. Constitution by allowing private parties to sue under the law and effectively act as “officers of the United States.”
Those have to be officially appointed, usually by the president or head of an agency.
“Here, Relators were not appointed through any of these modes. Accordingly, they cannot validly exercise the law enforcement power of the United States,” the company wrote. “The proper remedy, therefore, is to dismiss this case.”
Array has been in a years-long legal battle with two attorneys, Mark O’Connor and Sara Leibman, a former FCC lawyer, who allege the company used subsidiaries to improperly obtain small business credits and buy spectrum for less money than it could have by bidding directly. The company denies this, and the...
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