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　　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 Engelmayer said in his ruling that he had found strong evidence that AT&T and three company executives had warned analysts in March and April 2016 that smartphone sales were not as good as Expectations may impact overall revenue.

　　The SEC found AT&T's practice a violation of the Fair Disclosure Regulations (Regulation FD), passed in 2000 to prohibit companies from disclosing material, non-public information privately without making it known to the public. The judge did not favor the SEC entirely, arguing that the three executives had no intention of deceiving investors.

　　"Unless settled, the case will move forward to trial," Engelmeier said.

　　In a March 2021 lawsuit, the SEC alleges AT&T disclosed key information about its smartphone business to 20 companies. The 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 lowered expectations and not disappoint investors, who may sell the stock and make the Shares fell. According to the data, the selected analysts lowered their revenue estimates at a uniform pace, with an average reduction of $1 billion, which ultimately made 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 free speech, a claim that the judge apparently did not accept.