WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2025 – Federal judges revived on Friday a fraud suit against UScellular can continue, reversing a lower court ruling that had sided with the company.
Mark O’Connor and Sara Leibman, a former FCC attorney, had sued UScellular under the False Claims Act, which mandates financial penalties for fraudulently seeking government funds.
They argued smaller companies that obtained bidding discounts in two Federal Communications Commission spectrum auctions were essentially puppets of UScellular, allowing the company to buy spectrum at a lower price than it could have by bidding itself.
The D.C. District Court had found two attorneys bringing the whistleblower suit made allegations based on information that was already public, which would prevent them from bringing a lawsuit.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit disagreed. The attorneys “identified significant new evidence that Advantage,” one of the bidders, “never functioned as an independent business,” and “allege that Advantage had made an undisclosed agreement to transfer the licenses to UScellular through a merger after the unjust-enrichment period had ended,” the court decision said.
The second allegation might not ultimately be proved, but it was “at least plausibly alleged,” Circuit Judge Greogory Katsas wrote.
Earlier this year, the same panel of three D.C. Circuit judges sided against Leibman and O’Connor in a separate FCA case related to another UScellular subsidiary, dismissing the case...
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