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In her September 20, 2022 statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Chairwoman Lina Kahn emphasized the FTC’s continued work combating repair restrictions that allegedly harm consumers, explaining that the FTC is “prioritizing action against business practices that unlawfully restrict consumers’ ability to repair their products, costing them more over the long term.”[1]
Continue Reading Federal Trade Commission Focused on Right to Repair Restrictions

There has been a nationwide shortage of infant formula following a recall and temporary closure of a major infant formula manufacturing facility in February 2022. This facility supplied as much as 40% of the nation’s infant formula. In the wake of these events, state attorneys general are on the lookout for unlawful price gouging of infant formula. Sellers of infant formula should make sure that they do not inadvertently run afoul of state price gouging restrictions.

Continue Reading States Target Infant Formula Price Gouging

California Penal Code § 396 prohibits price gouging in California during a state of emergency. California enacted a few amendments to Section 396 that are effective now.  As explained in more detail below, among other things, the amendments close potential loopholes relating to e-commerce, sales of new products, and the relevant benchmark date for pre-emergency prices.
Continue Reading Amended California Price Gouging Law Closes Potential Loopholes

California’s below-cost pricing statute, the Unfair Practices Act (the “UPA”), is perhaps the broadest such statute in the nation, and far broader than comparable federal laws, which have been narrowed in recent decades almost to the vanishing point.  Indeed, the statute—which dates back to the Great Depression and the era of New Deal economics—could be interpreted as a bright line prohibition against pricing just about anything below cost to take business from a competitor.  See Bus. & Prof. Code § 17043.  And yet, at least by the hyperactive standards of contemporary commercial litigation, the statute has not been heavily employed or even spoken about, mainly collecting cobwebs in the dim corners of law libraries.
Continue Reading Why Aren’t There More California Below-Cost Pricing Cases? *

The Federal Trade Commission has announced that, beginning today, consumers concerned about identity theft or data breaches can place credit freezes and one year fraud alerts with the three nationwide credit bureaus for free. The new Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief & Consumer Protection Act also allows parents to freeze for free the credit of their children who are under 16.
Continue Reading New Law Allows Consumers Concerned about Identity Theft to Place Free Credit Freezes and Fraud Alerts

Woodman’s Food Market, Inc. v. Clorox Co., No. 15-3001 (7th Cir.  August 12, 2016).

Clorox Sales Company and Clorox Company produce a range of consumer goods.  Clorox sold goods to Plaintiff Woodman’s Food Market, a local grocery store with locations in Wisconsin and Illinois.  Clorox also sold to discount warehouses such as Costco and Sam’s Club.  In 2014, Clorox unilaterally announced that it would sell its large packs only to wholesale discount clubs.  Thus, the large bulk-size packs, which had previously been sold to Woodman’s were no longer available to it by direct purchase from Clorox.Continue Reading Refusal to Sell Bulk-Size Packs, Without More, Is Not Price Discrimination – “Size is Not a Service”