Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: Consumer redress award in FTC suit not disturbed by High Court, (Oct 6, 2014)

The U.S. Supreme Court will not review a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, which upheld over $163 million in monetary consumer redress jointly and severally against Innovation Marketing, Inc. (IMI), and IMI executive Kristy Ross, for the company's deceptive advertising in violation of the FTC Act. Today, the Court denied a petition for certiorari, filed on May 27, 2014, asking whether the enforcement provisions authorizing monetary relief under Section 19 of the FTC Act preclude the inclusion of monetary remedies into the “purely injunctive” language of Section 13(b) of the FTC Act (Ross v. FTC, Dkt. 13-1426).

The petition asserted that courts have allowed the FTC to read Section 13(b) of the FTC Act to seek monetary remedies in consumer protection cases, when that Section only contains express authorization for injunctions. Section 19 recites restraints on monetary relief, the petition continued, which the FTC “evades” each time it seeks monetary remedies under Section 13(b) alone. The petition further contended that the FTC has transformed Section 13(b) from an injunctive tool into “a powerful weapon for monetary remedies and business-settlement extractions, contrary to the specific intent of Congress and the manifest statutory purpose.” The petition argued that the case presented an ideal vehicle to “stop the FTC's abuse of power.”

Attorneys: Robert P. Greenspoon and William W. Flachsbart (Flachsbart & Greenspoon, LLC) for Kristy Ross. Donald B. Verrilli Jr., Solicitor General, for FTC.

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