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Is there a way to hold a government agency like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accountable for the cost to businesses of what a company says are abrupt and systemic changes in regulatory standards? POM Wonderful LLC, a Los Angeles-based juice company, is trying to do just that by suing the FTC in District Court.
The FTC is reportedly investigating POM for alleged false advertising but hasn’t filed a complaint against the company. POM claims in its own lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, that the agency is already inventing new deceptive-advertising law on its own – without going through the required rule-making procedures -- and is getting ready to enforce it against POM.
Specifically, POM says the FTC is now requiring that advertisers obtain prior approval by the Food and Drug Administration before making claims that a product treats or prevents disease and that they must have two well-controlled studies before making non-disease claims.
POM alleges that the FTC has put out... Read more
Late last month, we noted a highly unusual decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in the District of Columbia to order the Federal Trade Commission to respond to interrogatories about a subpoena it had issued to Paul Bisaro, the CEO of Watson Pharmaceuticals, in a generic-drug investigation. Normally, that sort of inquiry into the… Read More
When a U.S. magistrate judge in the District of Columbia issued his ruling in Federal Trade Commission v. Bisaro on July 13, 2010, permitting limited discovery of certain FTC officials regarding an agency subpoena, it had been more than three decades since the D.C. Circuit had found that “extraordinary circumstances” were present that warranted discovery… Read More
