Cite as: 535 U. S. 743 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
has erred against objection made at the time appropriate under its practice").
Should a party choose to ignore an order issued by the FMC, the Commission may impose monetary penalties for each day of noncompliance. See 46 U. S. C. App. § 1712(a) (1994 ed., Supp. V). The Commission may then request that the Attorney General of the United States seek to recover the amount assessed by the Commission in federal district court, see § 1712(e) (1994 ed.), and a State's sovereign immunity would not extend to that action, as it is one brought by the United States. Furthermore, once the FMC issues an order assessing a civil penalty, a sanctioned party may not later contest the merits of that order in an enforcement action brought by the Attorney General in federal district court. See ibid. (limiting review to whether the assessment of the civil penalty was "regularly made and duly issued"); United States v. Interlink Systems, Inc., 984 F. 2d 79, 83 (CA2 1993) (holding that review of whether an order was "regularly made and duly issued" does not include review of the merits of the FMC's order).
Thus, any party, including a State, charged in a complaint by a private party with violating the Shipping Act is faced with the following options: appear before the Commission in a bid to persuade the FMC of the strength of its position or stand defenseless once enforcement of the Commission's nonreparation order or assessment of civil penalties is sought in federal district court.15 To conclude that this choice does
15 While Justice Breyer argues that States' access to "full judicial review" of the Commission's orders mitigates any coercion to participate in FMC adjudicative proceedings, post, at 784, he earlier concedes that a State must appear before the Commission in order "to obtain full judicial review of an adverse agency decision in a court of appeals," post, at 783. This case therefore does not involve a situation where Congress has allowed a party to obtain full de novo judicial review of Commission orders without first appearing before the Commission, and we express no opinion as to whether sovereign immunity would apply to FMC adjudicative proceedings under such circumstances.
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