The Seattle Times reported that King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued the legal-fee order on Friday, two days after he hit the social media giant with what is reportedly the largest campaign finance fine in U.S. history. The judge also ordered Facebook parent company Meta to pay $10.5 million in legal fees to Washington state on top of a nearly $25 million fine for repeated and intentional violations of campaign finance disclosure laws.

The corporation has 30 days to send payment to North via wire transfer, check, or money order. The state Public Disclosure Commission, which upholds regulations governing political funding, will get the funds. For more than 800 infractions of Washington's Fair Campaign Practices Act, which voters passed in 1972 and the Legislature later tightened, North levied the maximum penalties permitted. Attorney General of Washington Bob Ferguson claimed that the maximum was appropriate given that Facebook had already been sued by his office for violating the same law in 2018. The company had earlier said that, in light of the choice, it was assessing its alternatives.

The names and addresses of persons who buy political advertisements must be kept track of and made public, along with the target demographic, payment method, and overall number of views for each ad, according to Washington's transparency law, which requires ad providers like Meta. Anyone who requests it must get the details from ad vendors. Networks for newspapers and television have consistently followed the law.

But Meta has continually opposed the rules, arguing in court that they are illegal because they 'unduly burden political speech' and are 'almost hard to completely comply with.' While Facebook does keep a record of the political advertisements that are posted on its platform, the data does not fully satisfy the requirements of Washington's law.

Following Ferguson's initial complaint, Facebook agreed to pay $238,000 and pledged to be transparent about political advertising and campaign funding.It then announced that it would stop selling political commercials in the state rather than respect the regulations.

2020 saw Ferguson bring a second lawsuit when the business continued to sell political commercials. One of the richest companies in the world, Meta, reported earnings of $4.4 billion, or $1.64 per share, for the three months that ended on September 30 on revenue of about $28 billion.