DoJ renews bid to kill Ligado's $50 billion spectrum lawsuit

The US Department of Justice has filed a fresh motion asking the US Court of Federal Claims to dismiss Ligado Networks' approximately $50 billion (€44.5 billion) lawsuit against the federal government, arguing the claim lacks any protected legal rights.

The filing, made last week, is the DoJ's second attempt to end the long-running case. The department contends the lawsuit has no merit because Ligado holds no compensable property interest in the spectrum at issue.

The dispute traces back to 2020, when the Federal Communications Commission allocated L-band licences to Ligado. The company planned to deploy and commercialise that L-band satellite spectrum terrestrially. Ligado argues those efforts were roadblocked because undisclosed military systems were using, or relied on, the same frequencies. At its core, the claim is a constitutional one: Ligado says the US government took private property — its licences — for public use without paying compensation.

What does the DoJ's argument rest on?

The government's motion zeroes in on how Ligado got its spectrum. The FCC handed over the L-band licences for free and without an auction. That matters, the DoJ argues, because Ligado never acquired the right to shut other federal agencies out of the band.

"Ligado cannot demonstrate that the FCC granted it the right to exclude non-FCC federal agencies, such as Department of War (DoW) in its ATC licence, and the court cannot read a right to exclude those agencies into the licence," the DoJ said in its motion.

If the court accepts that reasoning, the practical consequences reach well beyond one company. Ligado's chief executive cast the stakes in unusually blunt terms.

"The government's motion to dismiss argues that an FCC spectrum license, even one worth billions of dollars, can be taken by the federal government without any compensation," Ligado CEO Doug Smith said in a statement. "If accepted, that position would unsettle the spectrum marketplace, deter investment in next-generation communications, and put future innovation at risk. Ligado will defend its rights in court and continue seeking just compensation for the taking of its exclusive rights to use its licensed spectrum."

That is a company talking point, and it should be read as such. But the underlying legal question — whether a non-auctioned FCC licence creates a compensable property right — is genuinely unsettled ground for the US spectrum market.

Who else is exposed?

Ligado's counsel widened the frame considerably, naming the two most heavily capitalised players in satellite broadband. Gerry Waldron told Space News the government's position threatens operators far beyond Ligado.

"The government's argument that an FCC-issued spectrum licence not acquired at an FCC auction is somehow unique is as damaging as it is nonsensical," Waldron said. "Damaging from an industry point of view since companies as diverse as Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Amazon LEO have made significant investments in such licenses that are similar to Ligado's spectrum. Nonsensical because it ignores the thousands of licences that the FCC has issued without auctions, including all those before Ligado's licence and — as with SpaceX and Amazon LEO — many licences granted by the FCC in recent years."

The numbers support his framing on frequency, if not on value. Thousands of FCC licences have been issued without competitive bidding, both historically and in recent years. A ruling that strips non-auctioned licences of compensation rights would therefore touch a broad swath of US spectrum holdings — though the DoJ would counter that none of those licences, Ligado's included, ever promised exclusivity against defence-department systems in the first place.

What happens next?

The Court of Federal Claims has set a deadline of December 7 for Ligado's response to the dismissal motion. The company has signalled it will fight rather than settle, promising to "defend its rights in court" and pursue what it calls just compensation. How the court draws the line between an auctioned and a non-auctioned licence may determine whether that $50 billion figure ever gets tested on its merits.