Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

The FTC sued multilevel marketer Amare Global Holdings Inc. and three of its principals for misrepresenting to parents and other consumers that its dietary supplements marketed for children and adults could treat or cure health conditions such as depression, anxiety and ADHD, and for misleading its seller recruits about their potential earnings as “brand partners.” 

The FTC filed a lawsuit against the three largest prescription drug benefit managers (PBMs)—Caremark Rx, Express Scripts (ESI), and OptumRx—and their affiliated group purchasing organizations (GPOs) for engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs.

On February 4, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission secured a landmark settlement with Express Scripts, Inc., and its affiliated entities (collectively “ESI”). The settlement requires ESI to adopt fundamental changes to its business practices that increase transparency, are expected to drive down patients’ out-of-pocket costs for drugs like insulin by up to $7 billion over 10 years, bring millions of dollars in new revenue to community pharmacies each year, and advance the Trump Administration’s key healthcare priorities.

The FTC announced a settlement Celsius Network that will permanently ban it from handling consumers’ assets and charged three former executives with tricking consumers into transferring cryptocurrency onto the platform by falsely promising that deposits would be safe and always available.

Shutterstock Inc. will pay $35 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the online digital photo and video platform illegally made tens of millions of dollars from a range of unfair and deceptive practices, including charging consumers for products without their informed consent and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions. 

The Federal Trade Commission is acting against a large automotive dealer group, Asbury Automotive, for systematically charging consumers for costly add-on items they did not agree to or were falsely told were required as part of their purchase. The FTC also alleges that Asbury discriminates against Black and Latino consumers, targeting them with unwanted and higher-priced add-ons.

In an administrative complaint, the FTC alleges that three Texas dealerships owned by Asbury that operate as David McDavid Ford Ft. Worth, David McDavid Honda Frisco, and David McDavid Honda Irving, along with Ali Benli, who acted as general manager of those dealerships, engaged in a variety of practices to sneak hidden fees for unwanted add-ons past consumers. These tactics included a practice called “payment packing,” where the dealerships convinced consumers to agree to monthly payments that were larger than needed to pay for the agreed-upon price of the car, and then “packed” add-on items to the sales contract to make up that difference.

The Federal Trade Commission will require automotive services company Valvoline Inc. and private equity firm Greenbriar Equity Fund V., L.P. (Greenbriar) to divest 45 quick-lube oil change shops to resolve antitrust concerns surrounding their $625 million deal. Main Street Auto, LLC will acquire the divested outlets from Greenbriar under the terms of the FTC’s proposed divestiture order.

The Federal Trade Commission sued Uber Technologies, Inc. and Uber USA LLC (collectively, “Uber”) for alleged violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence
Act (“ROSCA”). Among other things, the complaint alleges that Uber charges consumers for its subscription service, Uber One, through a negative option feature but has failed to provide a simple mechanism to stop recurring charges. The complaint also alleges Uber has charged consumers without their consent in violation of the FTC Act and ROSCA. Further, the complaint alleges Uber falsely claims that consumers can cancel Uber One at “any time” with no additional fees. 

The FTC filed a lawsuit today against Uber, alleging the rideshare and delivery company charged consumers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent, failed to deliver promised savings, and made it difficult for users to cancel the service despite its “cancel anytime” promises.

The FTC will prohibit data broker Kochava and its subsidiary from selling, sharing or disclosing sensitive location data without consumer consent to settle allegations the companies sold location data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to trace the movements of individuals.

The U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, and the Wisconsin Attorney General, filed suit against Consumer Law Protection and related companies, along with their owners and operators, Christopher Carroll, George Reed, Louann Reed, Scott Jackson, and Eduardo Balderas for scamming consumers—mostly older adults—out of more than $90 million in a massive timeshare exit scam.

Nevada-based Vanilla Chip LLC, which does business as TruHeight, and its two principals, Eden Stelmach and Justin Rapoport, have agreed to settle the Federal Trade Commission’s charges that they deceptively advertised the effectiveness of a range of supplements touted as supporting height growth in children and teenagers, and relied on reviews that were written by their own employees, or by consumers who were offered a free product or discount in return for writing a 5-star review. 

Publishing.com LLC and its two principals will pay $1.5 million and be required to substantiate earnings claims in the future to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the company and its operators misled consumers about how much money they were likely to earn using their products.

In April 2026, the FTC announced that StubHub, the nation’s largest ticket exchange and resale ticket provider, will pay $10 million to settle charges that the company violated the FTC Act and the agency’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees by deceptively advertising ticket prices on its website without clearly and conspicuously disclosing up-front how much consumers actually would pay, including all mandatory fees. 

The FTC reached a settlement with OkCupid and its affiliate Match Group Americas over allegations OkCupid deceived users of its dating app by sharing their personal information, including photos and location information, with an unrelated third party, contrary to OkCupid’s privacy promises. 

In March 2026, the FTC announced that it secured a settlement against Xponential Fitness for Franchise Rule violations and related deceptive practices, including $17 million that will be returned to franchisees, which is the largest amount ever to go back to consumers in a franchise case.

The FTC alleged that Xponential Fitness, which sells franchises for popular fitness studios brands such as Club Pilates, Pure Barre, YogaSix, StretchLab, and BFT, misrepresented key information about the costs, risks, time to open and operate studios, and essential details about the company’s operations, leaving many franchisees and prospective franchisees in the dark about their investment.