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The
Chamber is concerned about a Senate bill introduced last week
that would explicitly give the FTC the authority to ask a judge
to order money be returned to consumers.
The FTC had been suing deceptive companies and scam artists for
decades to recover funds but was stopped in April 2021 by the
Supreme Court, which ruled that the agency went further than it
could legally in extracting money following wrongdoing.
"This legislation would grant entirely new and sweeping
enforcement powers to the Federal Trade Commission," Chamber
Executive Vice President Neil Bradley said in a letter, adding
that the bill "had no meaningful bipartisan or stakeholder
involvement."
The letter was addressed to Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the
Senate Commerce Committee and a lead sponsor of the bill, as
well as Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the
committee.
In the five years before the 2021 Supreme Court decision, the
FTC returned $11.2 billion to consumers, Cantwell's office said
last week.
Given the Supreme Court decision, the FTC needs Congress to
expressly give it authority to recover such funds. The House of
Representatives passed similar legislation to the Senate bill
last year. The Commerce committee is expected to vote on the
bill on Wednesday.
A Chamber source said the Chamber believes the 10-year statute
of limitations in the bill is too long, the bill should be
limited to hard core fraud rather than deception or competition
matters and should only seek relief for actual harm done.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Richard Pullin)
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