On May 1, 2020, the Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau issued an order changing the Commission’s rules with respect to robocall enforcement actions. First, the Bureau will stop issuing warnings to robocallers before filing cases for alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Warnings, or formal citations, were previously required by law until the TRACED Act was enacted in December of 2019. Before the TRACED Act, the Commission was not able to propose fines for potential violators until after a citation had been issued.
Second, the Bureau extended the statute of limitations for bringing TCPA and spoofing violations to four years, another change set forth in the TRACED Act. Until these changes, the Commission only had one year to propose fines for TCPA violations and two years for spoofing violations.
Both changes will go into effect 30 days after their publication in the Federal Register.