U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is calling on Congress to restore the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) authority to return money to consumers victimized by illegal scams.
This comes after the Supreme Court slashed the FTC’s authority in April 2021. For more than 40 years, the FTC has had enforcement authority under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act to go to federal court against companies for deceptive practices and refund any ill-gotten funds to consumers.
A report released by Cantwell outlines a series of successful FTC cases against technology and pharmaceutical companies, including Amazon, Uber, AT&T, Teva, and Tracfone, which returned millions of dollars to victims of illegal conduct. In just the past five years before the Supreme Court’s decision, the FTC had returned $11.2 billion to consumers who had been scammed or victims of deceptive practices.
“This report makes very clear what’s at stake for consumers if Congress fails to act,” Cantwell, chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said. “If the FTC remains disarmed of this critical authority, millions of consumers and small businesses who’ve been scammed, swindled, or locked out of competitive marketplaces will never be made whole.”
After the Supreme Court’s ruling last year to strike down this authority, all FTC cases, even those decided in favor of consumers, were halted. This allowed corporations to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in redress owed to victims.
“The loss of the FTC’s 13(b) authority is hitting the pocketbooks of consumers today,” Cantwell said. “Consumers will not see $493 million in refunds a Federal trial court ordered pharma companies AbbieVie and Besins Healthcare to pay as a result of their scheme to keep lower-priced generic versions of AndroGel off the markets. As a result, consumers paid hundreds of millions more for an expensive brand-name drug, instead of generic drugs. Now, instead of giving the money back to consumers, AbbVie and Besins will get to keep the money. This is unconscionable. Congress can act to stop this from happening in the future and restore this vital authority to the FTC so it can help return money back to consumers’ pockets.”
Cantwell will introduce legislation this week that would fully restore the FTC’s ability under Section 13(b) to allow the FTC to sue scammers in federal court to return the money they took from consumers as well as disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.
The bill would authorize monetary remedies for consumers who were harmed by consumer protection violations; ensure that the FTC may sue for injunctions and consumer redress for prior conduct; affirm that the FTC must argue its cases in front of a neutral federal judge, with full due process and opportunity to appeal; and create a statute of limitations of 10 years on FTC suits.