OCTOBER 2018
The FTC announced the agenda for its next set of hearings on October 15-17, co-sponsored with the
Global Antitrust Institute. The hearings
will examine the potential for collusive, exclusionary, and predatory conduct
in multi-sided, technology-based platform industries. Sessions will also address antitrust
frameworks for evaluating acquisitions of nascent competitors or occurring in
nascent markets, including in the technology and digital marketplace, and the assessment
of antitrust issues regarding labor markets.
The agency has also scheduled the next three hearings, on Innovation and
Intellectual Property Policy (Oct. 23-24), Privacy, Big Data, and Competition (Nov.
6-7), and Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and Predictive Analytics (Nov.
13-14).
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A team of attorneys and other staff at the FTC
received a prestigious Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for their
public service in negotiating a historic $586 million settlement with Western
Union that will provide refunds to hundreds of thousands of consumers in the
United States and worldwide who lost money through fraud-induced money
transfers. Team leader Karen Dodge, and
Joannie Wei, Elizabeth Scott, and Doug McKenney, all in the FTC’s Midwest
Region office in Chicago, received the Homeland Security and Law Enforcement
Medal jointly with a team from the Department of Justice.
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Robert Pitofsky, FTC Chairman from
1995-2001 and previously a Commissioner and Director of the Bureau of Consumer
Protection, died on October 6. Among his
achievements was convening a set of public hearings that helped shape FTC
competition and consumer protection enforcement and policy amid rapid changes
in the economy driven by digital technology and globalization. Those hearings were the model for the
Commission’s current hearings on competition and consumer protection in the 21st
century. FTC Chairman Joseph J. Simons
issued on a statement saying, “Bob’s legacy thus continues to inspire us. We will continue to look to Bob’s example of
brilliance, leadership, integrity and devotion to the American consumer as we
move forward.”
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Four companies have agreed to settle FTC charges that they falsely
claimed certification under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework and that two
of these companies failed to abide by a key provision of the framework. The framework establishes a process to allow
companies to transfer consumer data from European Union countries to the United
States in compliance with EU law. The
Department of Commerce administers the framework, while the FTC enforces the
promises companies make when they join the framework.
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The FTC settled charges against a marketer and seller of intravenously injected therapy products (iV cocktails) that allegedly made deceptive and unsupported health claims about their ability to treat serious diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, and congestive heart failure. As part of the settlement, the FTC required the company’s owner to send an email to certain consumers advising them that scientific studies have not shown that the cocktail is an effective treatment and urging them to speak to their healthcare providers about treatment.
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The FTC, working jointly with the U.S. Department of Justice, is mailing nearly
1.8 million refund checks totaling more than $505 million to people who were
deceived by a massive payday lending scheme that charged them undisclosed and
inflated fees. The consumer refunds stem
from a record-setting $1.3 billion civil court judgment for violations of the
FTC Act and the Truth in Lending Act. The
order represents the largest litigated judgment ever obtained by the FTC.
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A U.S. district court in Florida
has granted the FTC’s motion for summary judgment on all counts of its amended
complaint against weight-loss supplement marketer Roca Labs, including
allegations that the company’s enforcement of “gag clauses” to stop consumers
from posting negative reviews is unfair and likely to cause substantial harm,
in violation of the FTC Act.
The operators of websites that
sold fake documents used to facilitate identity theft and other frauds have
agreed to shut down their businesses permanently as part of separate
settlements with the FTC. Identity theft
was the second biggest category of consumer
complaints (14%) reported to the FTC in
2017.
In testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust,
Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, the FTC described its antitrust enforcement
and policy work. The testimony focused
on the FTC’s merger enforcement; its efforts to combat anticompetitive conduct
in healthcare markets; the agency’s advocacy work, including its public
hearings on competition and consumer protection in the 21st century;
and its international competition engagement and cooperative activities. Chairman Joseph Simons and Assistant Attorney
General Makan Delrahim of the U.S Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division
delivered testimony and responded to questions as part of the Senate’s
oversight hearing on the enforcement of the antitrust laws, available on video
at the Committee’s
website.
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FTC Chairman Joseph J. Simons and Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim
of the U.S Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division met with Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s Commissioner for
Competition, in Washington D.C. to discuss current competition policy issues
and cross-border cooperation. The
discussions covered a wide range of topics, including digital markets, the
proposed Multilateral Framework on Procedures, two-sided markets and platforms,
data protection rules and cooperation, vertical mergers, unilateral conduct,
and merger cooperation.
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The FTC released a staff report examining ways
to reduce the burden on licensed workers who move to another state or wish to
market services across state lines. The
Report, Options to Enhance Occupational
License Portability, is part of the FTC’s ongoing Economic Liberty Task
Force initiative to reduce or eliminate unnecessary occupational licensing
requirements.
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Christine S. Wilson was sworn in as a Commissioner of the FTC. President Donald J. Trump named Wilson to a
term that expires on Sept. 25, 2025. Wilson
previously served at the FTC as Chief of Staff to former Chairman Timothy Muris
during the George W. Bush Administration, and as a law clerk in the Bureau of
Competition. In between her periods of FTC
service, Wilson practiced competition and consumer protection law in the
private sector.
FTC staff will examine consumer protection and competition issues
related to the online event ticket marketplace at a public workshop on March
27, 2019. The online event ticket
industry has been a frequent topic of consumer and competitor complaints. FTC staff is seeking public input in advance
of the workshop, including possible discussion topics and potential
participants.
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FTC Chairman Joseph J. Simons selected Gail F.
Levine as a Deputy Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, effective Oct.
15. Levine returns to the FTC,
having served as an Attorney Advisor to Chairman Deborah Majoras, as Deputy
Assistant General Counsel, and as Assistant Director of the Office of Policy
Planning. She is currently Director of
U.S. Competition Law at Uber Technologies, Inc.
FTC
Chairman Joseph J. Simons spoke at the Georgetown Law Global Antitrust
Enforcement Symposium on his approach to antitrust. According to Simons, “one should be agnostic
on theory, be skeptical about assumptions, try to rely as much as possible on
evidence and the data, and re-assess the evidence and data periodically.” He stressed his intention to pursue vigorous
enforcement as Chairman. Click the
headline above for further details and his discussion of case selection
criteria.
Econsumer.gov Releases Top Complaint Categories for April to June
Did
you know? Econsumer.gov categorizes
complaints by product service codes.
There are more than 100, which you can download here. Contact Hui Ling Goh for
more information on how to participate in econsumer.gov.
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Under a new federal law implemented by the FTC, consumers who are
concerned about identity theft or data breaches can freeze their credit and
place one-year fraud alerts free of charge.
A fraud alert requires businesses that check a consumer’s credit to get
the consumer’s approval before opening a new account, making it harder for
identity thieves to open new accounts in the consumer’s name.
The FTC is celebrating the 100th
anniversary of the opening of its first regional offices, and the important
role they play in protecting consumers and promoting competition through law
enforcement, partnerships, and outreach to community and industry groups.
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