Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, AGENCY NEWS: FTC submits 2017 budget request, 2015 performance report, (Feb 9, 2016)

As required under the Government Performance and Results and Modernization Act of 2010, the FTC has submitted its Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 budget request to Congress. Included with the request are the FY 2017 Budget Overview Statement, Performance Plan for FY 2016 and FY 2017, and Performance Report for FY 2015.

In reviewing its performance for FY 2015, the FTC touted its consumer protection record of having filed 65 new complaints in federal district court and obtaining 130 permanent injunctions and orders requiring defendants to pay more than $874.1 million in consumer redress or disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, as well as civil contempt orders of more than $9.6 million. In addition, cases referred to the Department of Justice resulted in nine court judgments for civil penalties of more than $23 million. Furthermore, the FTC issued 41 new administrative complaints and obtained 43 administrative orders in past and new cases.

During the same period, the FTC issued six reports and released 57 new consumer and business education publications.

For FY 2017, the FTC is requesting $342,000,000 and 1,211 full-time employees. This represents an increase of $35,100,000 over the FTC’s FY 2016 enacted budget. Over two-thirds of that increase would go toward paying for non-compensation programmatic responsibilities to protect consumers and promote competition. The remaining increase would go towards paying for certain mandatory expenses and twenty new full-time employees for its Promoting Competition goal.

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