Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

The FTC’s December 2016 complaint alleged that between 2011 and 2016 the defendants called timeshare property owners falsely claiming that they had a buyer or renter ready to buy or rent their properties for a specified price, or making false promises to sell the timeshares quickly. A May 2018 settlement order permanently banned the defendants from timeshare resale services and telemarketing and required them to surrender approximately $3.4 million worth of assets to the Commission. On October 10, 2019, the FTC mailed 8,088 refund checks totaling nearly $2.7 million to consumers defrauded by the scheme.

In December 2018, officers of a company that marketed and sold Nobetes, a pill they claimed treats diabetes, settled an FTC complaint alleging that the advertising claims for the product are false or unsubstantiated. The order settling the FTC’s complaint prohibits the company and its officers from undertaking future deceptive practices, including making unsubstantiated health claims, misleading consumers about the terms of “free trial” offers, billing consumers without their consent, and other practices related to the use of “expert” endorsements and consumer testimonials. In addition, it requires them to pay money to provide refunds to consumers who bought the product. In August 2019, the FTC returned $60,791 to these consumers.

Announced in June 2019 as part of a crackdown on illegal robocalls against operations around the country responsible for more than one billion calls, the FTC’s complaint against Derek Jason Bartoli alleges the Florida-based defendant has been an active participant in the illegal telemarketing industry for several years, serving as the “dialer,” “information technology (IT) guy,” and at times the seller for various telemarketing companies, including companies that the FTC and other law enforcement agencies have sued. He provided services in his own name and in the names of Phoenix Innovative Solutions LLC, Marketing Consultation Solutions LLC, and KimRain Marketing LLC.

James L. Dolan, Executive Chairman of Madison Square Garden Company, has agreed to pay $609,810 in civil penalties to resolve Federal Trade Commission allegations that he violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act by failing to report in a timely manner his acquisition of voting securities in Madison Square Garden Company.

The FTC is mailing 3,483 checks totaling more than $1.95 million to consumers who bought the NutriMost Ultimate Fat Loss System between October 1, 2012 and August 9, 2016, in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Each consumer will receive a refund of $560.54.

The FTC issued an administrative complaint charging that Wilhelmsen Maritime Services’ proposed $400 million acquisition of Drew Marine Group would violate the antitrust laws by significantly reducing competition in an important market for marine water treatment chemicals and services used by global fleets. Marine water treatment chemicals and services are used by tankers, container ships, bulk carriers, cruise ships, and military support vessels to maintain critical on-board equipment. The FTC alleges that if consummated, the merger would result in a company controlling at least 60 percent of the global marine water treatment chemical and service market, leaving only inferior alternatives for global fleets. The FTC also authorized staff to seek in federal court a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent the parties from consummating the merger, and to maintain the status quo pending the administrative proceeding.

Investment firm founder Fayez Sarofim agreed to pay $720,000 in civil penalties to resolve allegations that he violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act by failing to report stock purchases from several issuers between 2001 and 2012. The HSR Act exempts acquisitions of up to ten percent of voting securities if they are made solely for investment purposes, but this exemption is not available to individuals who serve on the board of directors of the issuer at the time the shares are acquired. The FTC alleged that because Sarofim was serving as a board member at each company for which he acquired voting shares, he was ineligible for an investment-only exemption from filing and his failure to report a series of transactions to U.S. antitrust authorities violated the Act. From 2001 to 2012, Sarofim acquired voting shares of energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan, Inc., crossing three different filing thresholds without making the filings required under the HSR Act. In 2007, he acquired voting shares in insurance holding company Kemper Corporation and did not file as required under the Act. According to the complaint, he was already serving as a board member at Kinder Morgan and at Kemper’s predecessor company, Unitrin Inc., before he made the respective stock purchases.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Berkshire Hathaway changed convertible notes it owned in USG into 21.4 million voting securities on December 9, 2013. As a result of the conversion, the value of its USG holdings exceeded $283.6 million, the premerger reporting threshold under the HSR Act at the time. The company subsequently made a corrective filing, and acknowledged that the transaction should have been reported under the HSR Act. The final judgment settling the complaint requires Berkshire Hathaway to pay a civil penalty of $896,000, based on the time it was in violation of the HSR Act, from December 9, 2013 when it acquired the shares via the conversion through February 3, 2014, the end of the waiting period for the corrective filing.