AT&T was accused of leaking financial information to analysts and was refused to withdraw the lawsuit.

On the morning of September 9, Beijing time, it was reported that the US SEC accused AT&T of selectively disclosing financial information to Wall Street analysts. AT&T asked to drop the lawsuit, but a US judge rejected AT&T 's request on Thursday.

Judge Paul Engelmeier (Paul Engelmayer) said in his ruling that he had found strong evidence that AT&T and three company executives warned analysts in March and April 2016 that lower-than-expected smartphone sales could affect overall revenue.

SEC argues that AT&T 's approach violates the Fair Disclosure Rule (Regulation FD), which was passed in 2000 to prohibit companies from disclosing material non-public information in private without making it known to the public. The judge did not fully favour SEC, arguing that the three executives had no intention of deceiving investors.

"unless settled, the case will advance to trial," Engelmeier said. "

In a lawsuit filed in March 2021, SEC accused AT&T of disclosing key information about its smartphone business to 20 companies. SEC believes that AT&T is doing this to manage analysts and get them to lower their revenue forecasts, so that actual results can match the lower expectations and will not disappoint investors, who may sell shares and let the share price down. According to the data, the selected analysts cut their revenue estimates at a uniform pace, by an average of $1 billion, eventually making AT&T 's performance higher than analysts' expectations.

AT&T argued that Regulation FD itself was unconstitutional because it violated the company's right to freedom of expression, which was clearly not accepted by the judge.