Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

In 2022, the FTC and twelve state partners filed a lawsuit against pesticide manufacturers Syngenta and Corteva, alleging that each defendant implemented a post-patent loyalty program that paid distributors to forgo buying competing generic products. 

Motions to Dismiss

Syngenta and Corteva each moved to dismiss the lawsuit. On January 12, 2024, the Court issued an opinion and order denying defendants’ motions to dismiss.

Corteva Settlement

On September 25, 2026, the FTC and state plaintiffs, together with Corteva, filed with the Court an agreed stipulated order settling the Corteva case. The stipulated order requires Corteva to dismantle its existing active-ingredient-based post-patent loyalty programs. For a period of ten years, Corteva is prohibited from conditioning payments or other benefits to a customer on that customer purchasing a high share of its requirements for a given pesticide active ingredient from Corteva or on limiting its purchases of generic equivalents, ending Corteva’s exclusionary conduct that has raised pesticide prices for farmers.

The stipulated order applies to all of Corteva’s post-patent active ingredients, and it applies to existing programs and future programs for the term of the stipulated order (10 years). 

If you have concerns about whether Corteva is complying with its obligations under the stipulated order, please contact Paul Frangie at (202) 326-2697 and pfrangie@ftc.gov, Kenneth Libby at 202-326-2694 and klibby@ftc.gov, or bccompliance@ftc.gov.

FleetCor and its CEO will pay $100 million to settle a FTC administrative action alleging that the company charged its customers, who overwhelmingly are small businesses, undisclosed fees in connection with their use of fuel cards that FleetCor falsely promised businesses would save them money.

Amway Corp., one of the largest multilevel marketing companies in the U.S., and two of its affiliates—World Wide Group, L.L.C. (WWG) and Leadership Team Development Inc. (LTD)—will pay $225 million to resolve allegations from the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Washington that the companies use unfair and deceptive tactics to recruit members to its direct selling and multilevel marketing opportunity.

The Federal Trade Commission took action to resolve antitrust concerns arising from a stock purchase agreement between two of the largest firearm manufacturers, Beretta Holding S.A. (Beretta) and Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. (Ruger), by accepting a proposed consent order that prevents anticompetitive entanglements between the two companies.

Under the terms of the FTC’s proposed consent order, Beretta, a subsidiary of Upifra S.A., will be prohibited from appointing or nominating anyone to serve on Ruger’s board of directors unless that person is independent of Beretta.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Amazon.com, Inc. for its years-long effort to enroll consumers into its Prime program without their consent while knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions to Prime.

In a complaint filed today, the FTC charges that Amazon has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime. Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as “dark patterns” to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions.

Amazon also knowingly complicated the cancellation process for Prime subscribers who sought to end their membership. The primary purpose of its Prime cancellation process was not to enable subscribers to cancel, but to stop them. Amazon leadership slowed or rejected changes that would’ve made it easier for users to cancel Prime because those changes adversely affected Amazon’s bottom line. 

Payment processing company Humboldt Merchant Services will pay $12 million and be permanently banned from processing payments for merchants with a heightened risk of potential fraud to settle allegations that Humboldt processed payments for merchants that defrauded consumers.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Humboldt processed payments for more than 1,000 merchants that were shell entities that served as fronts or pass-throughs for fraudulent companies engaged in unauthorized billing scams, including Legion Media, which the FTC shut down in 2024.

The Federal Trade Commission sued to block Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (Henkel), the manufacturer of the industry-leading Loctite brand construction adhesives, from acquiring Loctite’s main competitor, Liquid Nails. The FTC alleges that the merger would eliminate fierce competition between Loctite and Liquid Nails, leading to higher prices, lower quality, and reduced innovation, all of which would be detrimental to American consumers.

On August 14, 2026, after a seven-day trial, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the FTC’s request for a permanent injunction to block Henkel’s proposed $725 million acquisition of Liquid Nails from private equity firm American Industrial Partners 

Nuvei will pay $4.85 million to settle FTC charges that the firm opened and maintained payment processing accounts for merchants that it knew or should have known were engaged in deception, including tech support scams that took millions of dollars from consumers. 

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 FTC, joined by Utah and California, by and through Los Angeles County Counsel, today sued Hims & Hers alleging that the telehealth provider shared consumers’ sensitive health information about medical conditions with third-party advertising platforms despite claiming its services maintain consumers’ privacy and deceives users about its billing and cancellation practices.

The FTC will require Cox Media Group, MindSift, and 1010 Digital Works to pay a total of $930,000 to settle allegations they deceived customers by falsely claiming to offer an AI-powered service that could target localized ads based on conversations captured from consumers’ smart devices and that consumers had opted into such targeting