Clothing Accessories Companies to Pay to Resolve FTC 'Made in USA' Violations
A group of New England-based clothing accessories companies and their owner will pay $191,481 to resolve claims that they sold their products as “Made in USA” despite importing them entirely or adding only minimal U.S. content, the Federal Trade Commission said in a recent news release.
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Chaucer Accessories, Bates Accessories, and Bates Retail Group “have frequently advertised their products as being ‘Made in USA’ or ‘Hand Crafted in USA’ in their marketing and sales materials,” and sold belts labeled as "'Made in USA from Global Materials,’” according to an FTC complaint. But some of those products were “wholly imported or incorporated significant imported components,” and the belts “consisted of belt straps imported from Taiwan with buckles attached in the U.S.,” which CBP said is only “a minimal assembly operation that does not change the name, character, or use of an imported belt strap,” the complaint said.
The FTC consent order that resolves the claims also bars the companies and their owner, Thomas Bates, from making unqualified U.S. origin claims for any product unless it can show that final assembly or processing -- and all significant processing -- "takes place in the U.S., and that all or virtually all ingredients or components of the product are made and sourced in the U.S.,” the news release said.
The consent order also says Bates and his companies “are required to include in any qualified Made in USA claims a clear and conspicuous disclosure about the extent to which the product contains foreign parts, ingredients or components, or processing.” For any claim that a product is assembled in the U.S., the product must be “last substantially transformed in the U.S., its principal assembly takes place in the U.S., and U.S. assembly operations are substantial,” the FTC said.