Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

LotaData settled Federal Trade Commission allegations that the company falsely claimed certification under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework. 

The Federal Trade Commission authorized an action to block Evonik Industries AG’s proposed $625 million acquisition of PeroxyChem Holding Company, alleging the merger of the chemical companies would substantially reduce competition in the Pacific Northwest and the Southern and Central United States for the production and sale of hydrogen peroxide, a commodity chemical used for oxidation, disinfection, and bleaching.

Mortgage Solutions FCS, doing business as Mount Diablo Lending, and Ramon Walker agreed to pay $120,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other laws by revealing personal information about consumers in response to negative reviews posted on the review website Yelp. 

InfoTrax, L.C. settled Federal Trade Commission allegations that the company failed to put in place reasonable security safeguards, allowing a hacker to access the personal information of more than a million consumers. 

The Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint against data analytics company Cambridge Analytica, and filed settlements for public comment with Cambridge Analytica’s former chief executive and an app developer who worked with the company, alleging they employed deceptive tactics to harvest personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users for voter profiling and targeting.

Former Cambridge Analytica, LLC CEO Alexander Nix and Aleksandr Kogan, an app developer who worked with the company, settled Federal Trade Commission allegations that they used deceptive tactics to collect personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users for voter profiling and targeting. 

The FTC is mailing refund checks totaling more than $2.6 million to small businesses who lost money to a New York-based office supply scam operated by a business known as A-1 Janitorial.

The FTC and the State of Connecticut sued the marketers of LeanSpa in December 2011, charging that they used fake websites to promote acai berry and “colon cleanse” weight-loss products, and falsely told consumers they could receive free trials by paying a nominal shipping and handling cost. In reality, consumers paid $79.95 for the trial, and for recurring monthly shipments of the product that were hard to cancel. The LeanSpa marketers settled the complaint in 2014, agreeing to stop their allegedly deceptive practices and surrender assets for consumer redress. In October 2015, the FTC announced it was mailing more than 23,000 checks totaling over $3.7 million to consumers who bought LeanSpa products. In December 2019, the FTC sent a second round of checks totaling over $321,000 to consumers who bought LeanSpa products.

According to the agency’s April 2019 complaint, UrthBox violated the FTC Act by misrepresenting that positive consumer reviews on the BBB’s and other websites reflected the independent experiences or opinions of impartial consumers, while the reviewers actually had a material connection to the company. The FTC alleged that UrthBox did not adequately disclose that some consumers received compensation, including free snack boxes, to post those positive reviews. The final order settling the FTC’s charges bars the respondents from engaging in similar conduct and requires them to pay $100,000 to the FTC. In December 2019, the FTC returned more than $84,000 to compensate consumers charged after signing up for the trial offer.