17.4 Remedies

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a host of weapons in its remedial arsenal. It may issue cease and desist orders against unfair and deceptive acts and practices and let the punishment fit the crime. For instance, the FTC can order a company to remove or modify a deceptive trade name. It may order companies to substantiate their advertising. Or if a company fails to disclose facts about a product, the commission may order the company to affirmatively disclose the facts in future advertising. In the J. B.Williams case (Section 17.5.2 "Product Comparisons"), the court upheld the commission’s order that the company tell consumers in future advertising that the condition Geritol is supposed to treat—iron-poor blood—is only rarely the cause of symptoms of tiredness that Geritol would help cure.

The FTC has often exercised its power to order affirmative disclosures during the past decade, but its power to correct advertising deceptions is even broader. In Warner Lambert Co. v. Federal Trade Commission, the US court of appeals in Washington, using corrective advertisingA rarely used power of the FTC to require a company to correct previously misleading advertising. It does so by requiring the company to pay for further advertising that admits to the deception and makes corrected statements that are not misleading., approved the commission’s power to order a company to correct in future advertisements its former misleading and deceptive statements regarding Listerine mouthwash should it choose to continue to advertise the product.Warner Lambert Co. v. Federal Trade Commission, 562 F.2d 749 (D.C. Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 950 (1978). The court also approved the FTC’s formula for determining how much the company must spend: an amount equal to the average annual expenditure on advertising the mouthwash during the ten years preceding the case.

In addition to its injunctive powers, the FTC may seek civil penalties of $10,000 for violation of final cease and desist orders, and if the violation is a continuing one—an advertising campaign that lasts for weeks or months—each day is considered a separate violation. The commission may also sue for up to $10,000 per violation, as just described, for violations of its trade regulation rules (TRRs). Under the FTC Improvement Act of 1975, the commission is authorized to seek injunctions and collect monetary damages on behalf of injured consumers in cases involving violations of TRRs. It may also seek restitution for consumers in cases involving cease and desist orders if the party continuing to commit the unfair or deceptive practice should have known that it would be dishonest or fraudulent to continue doing so. The exact reach of this power to seek restitution, which generally had not been available before 1975, remains to be tested in the courts. As for private parties, though they have rights under the antitrust statutes, they have no right to sue under Section 5 of the FTC Act.