In a few days, the Commission will list the Forfeiture Orders here. Notably, all but one of the alleged senders failed to respond to the FCC's Notices of Apparent Liability, and the FCC imposed the full forfeiture it had proposed.

As expected, this wave of enforcement orders included some very large fines against repeat offenders. The Hot Lead, Inc. received the largest fine, at $1.5 million. SMC, LLC received a fine of $806,500, while the remaining entities received fines between $27,000 and $250,000.

The only entity to respond to the NAL, Sunstar Travel and Tours, raised a number of defenses that the FCC rejected as unsupported by any evidence. However, the Commission concluded that Sunstar Travel lacked the "ability to pay" -- a statutory forfeiture criterion -- and reduced the proposed forfeiture from $305,500 to $50,000. This amount was between 2 and 7.6 percent of Sunstar Travel's average gross revenues, which the Commission found to be reasonable.

Clean Credit, Inc. received a $139,500 fine today, and an additional proposed fine of $528,000 in early September.

With the exception of Clean Credit's $528,000 proposed forfeiture, each of the forfeitures were calculated using the base forfeiture used in other unsolicited fax cases: $4,500 per unsolicited fax, with a base forfeiture of $10,000 if the customer had attempted to opt out of future faxes.

The Commission, rather than the Bureau, must vote on all proposed fines above $100,000, so one may presume that each item involves a significant fine. Significant fines also are likely because several of the subjects of the draft enforcement orders have histories of prior FCC enforcement actions. One company -- The Hot Lead LLC -- received a fine of $2.5 million in 2008 for junk faxes. Pending against it are four proposed fines, of $739,500, $695,000, $47,000 and $51,500. Another company -- Sunstar Travel and Tours -- received a fine of $169,500 in 2008 and has a proposed fine of $136,000 pending now.

In addition, one potential action appears to be against an alleged "fax broadcaster." If issued, it would be the first proposed forfeiture issued under the Commission's "high degree of involvement" standard for fax broadcaster liability.

Caveat: Circulation of an item does not necessarily indicate impending action by the FCC. Four apparent "junk fax" orders began circulating in June 2009. 14 months later, those orders remain under consideration.

UPDATE 9/3/10: The FCC is beginning to release the orders. On Thursday, it released a Notice of Apparent Liability against Clean Credit, Inc. in the amount of $528,000. The Commission imposed the statutory maximum penalty of $16,000 per violation because

"Clean Credit has exhibited a flagrant disregard for the TCPA and the Commission’s rules and orders, with a lengthy history of violations, and an ongoing pattern of violations extending to as recently as a few months ago."

If the Commission similarly applies the $16,000 maximum forfeiture to the remaining investigations, multi-million dollar forfeitures are on the way.