Amazon is seeking narrow categories of documents demonstrating the “ambiguity and lack of consensus” surrounding the FTC’s “unprecedented application” of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) in its case against Amazon Prime, it said Friday. Amazon filed its reply (docket 2:23-cv-00932) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle in support of its motion to compel production of FTC communications and internal documents (see 2310200061). The company contends its Prime enrollment and cancellation processes don’t violate ROSCA. It claims those processes prominently and repeatedly disclose key terms like Prime’s price and automatic renewal feature, confirming that they comply with current law. The FTC doesn’t deny the documents exist or argue undue burden, said Amazon’s reply. Instead, the FTC argues that its discussions about ROSCA are irrelevant because ROSCA is clear on its face, it said. But less than a year ago, the FTC said the opposite, that new regulations are needed because the current framework, including ROSCA, doesn’t provide clarity, it said. That “contradiction alone” is reason to grant Amazon’s motion to compel, it said. Amazon must be permitted to secure information that will "impeach or contradict" the FTC’s case, it said. The agency is wrong that the documents have nothing to do with this case, it said. They are relevant to show the FTC “has manufactured a legal standard here that does not exist in the law,” Amazon said. They are also relevant “to undermine the FTC’s litigation positions and cross-examine witnesses about what the FTC now says ROSCA requires,” as well as to Amazon’s arguments that it lacked fair notice of and didn't knowingly violate a law that the agency has acknowledged isn't established, said the replay. The FTC must produce the four categories of requested documents, it said.

Corporations should study the facts before backing social justice-related campaigns like those waged recently against X and Elon Musk, the Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general wrote in letters to multiple companies Friday. The two states are investigating whether the nonprofit Media Matters manipulated facts and fabricated a story that X’s algorithms “deliberately placed offensive, anti-Semitic messaging next to the advertisements of various large corporations.” The two Republican AGs, Louisiana's Jeff Landry and Missouri's Andrew Bailey, sent letters to nine companies that recently pulled advertising from X: Apple, Disney, IBM, Lions Gate Entertainment, NBC Universal-Comcast, Paramount, Sony, Ubisoft and Warner Brothers. Media Matters’ campaign “appears to have been rooted in thin air,” they wrote. “There are serious, credible allegations that Media Matters deliberately manufactured a deceptive story.” Instead of identifying misinformation, its stated goal, Media Matters spread its own disinformation, they claimed. The companies and Media Matters didn’t comment.

The FTC is sending nearly $100 million in refunds to about 389,000 consumers it says were victimized when Vonage imposed junk fees and created obstacles to those who tried to cancel their subscriptions, said the agency Monday. The FTC’s November 2022 complaint alleged Vonage used “dark patterns” to make it difficult for consumers to cancel their service and often continued to charge them illegally even after they spoke to an agent directly and requested cancelation, it said. U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner for New Jersey in Trenton signed an order Dec. 9 (docket 3:22-cv-06435) directing Vonage to pay the FTC a $100 million monetary judgment within seven days to settle allegations it committed unfair acts or practices by failing to give consumers a “simple method” to cancel their telephone services (see 2212120007). The agency also accused Vonage of failing to disclose “material transaction terms” before obtaining consumers’ billing information, and alleged the company imposed fees without customers’ consent. The court ordered Vonage to install a “simple mechanism” for consumers to avoid being charged for goods and services and to immediately stop any recurring charges. The mechanism must be easy to find and use, and “not require the consumer to take any action that is objectively unnecessary” to cancel a charge, said Castner’s order.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit should reject bank BIU’s legal challenge of the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s dismissal of satellite company Spectrum Five’s complaint against Intelsat (see 2306280034) because BIU didn’t first appeal the bureau order to the full commission, said the FCC in a motion Monday. The Enforcement Bureau dismissed the complaint after Spectrum Five withdrew it, but BIU argued at the time that the bank had sole authority to withdraw the petition. The D.C. Circuit has jurisdiction over FCC final orders only, not the orders of subordinate bureaus, the agency said. After BIU told the FCC Spectrum Five didn’t have the authority to withdraw, the EB sent a letter of inquiry to Spectrum Five, but a response isn’t due until Aug. 25 (see 2308140041). “BIU has failed to exhaust administrative remedies. Thus, this Court lacks jurisdiction to consider the merits of the petition and should dismiss,” the FCC said.

The FTC and Florida attorney general sent $540,000 in checks to 4,600 consumers defrauded by a robocall scammer, Life Management Service of Orange County, the FTC said Thursday. The average check was $117, it said. Life Management used illegal robocalls to sell consumers bogus credit card interest rate reduction services, said the FTC and Florida’s 2016 complaint. In June 2019, the FTC said it partially settled the complaint by permanently barring 17 Life Management defendants from engaging in telemarketing and debt relief services and requiring them to pay for refunds. The U.S. District Court for Middle Florida granted summary judgment to the FTC and Florida against the scheme’s ringleader, Kevin Guice, in December 2018. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that judgment in March 2022. The FTC noted it was able to send refunds because it reached a settlement before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that the commission lacks authority under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act to seek monetary relief in federal court. “Because of that ruling, the Commission no longer has its strongest tool to return money to consumers, and it will become harder to provide refunds to consumers harmed by deceptive and unfair conduct.”

Verizon seeks a court order to strike a respondent’s class allegations under the Federal Arbitration Act and arbitrate the customer's dispute as an individual complaint, said its Monday petition to compel (docket 4:23-cv-00823) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis. The petition also seeks declaratory judgment. Respondent Andrew Holschen of St. Louis initiated a demand for himself only to arbitrate through the American Arbitration Association (AAA) in May 2022, challenging certain administrative charges for his Verizon wireless service, said the petition. In that demand, he opted out of “any and all past, present, and future classwide arbitrations” on Verizon’s administrative charge, it said. In September, Holschen amended his demand by filing a class action petition on behalf of himself and similarly situated individuals. Holschen acknowledged his agreement doesn’t allow class actions, but in an "attempt to circumvent" its “clear and unambiguous class waiver,” Holschen claimed paragraph 3, which "doesn’t allow class or collective arbitration," shouldn't apply because it conflicted with paragraph 6, which requires an administrative process if 25 or more customers initiate disputes with similar claims. Holschen’s “remedy” for the conflict between the two paragraphs is to nullify them, making him free to pursue class arbitration, the petition said. In March, Verizon moved to strike the class allegations for violating the agreement language; the arbitrator denied its motion to strike and didn't rule on the purported conflict between paragraphs. The arbitrator set Monday as a deadline for Holschen to file for class certification. Holschen’s underlying arbitration should be stayed until the court compels individual arbitration, Verizon said. The carrier will be “irreparably harmed” if Holschen is allowed to begin class arbitration, it said. A stay is “consistent with judicial efficiency” and would prevent contradictory rulings from the court and arbitrator, Verizon said.

A U.S. District Court judge upheld a magistrate judge’s rejection of a motion to dismiss a DOJ case seeking to collect the nearly $10 million FCC forfeiture against robocaller Scott Rhodes of Libby, Montana, said an opinion in U.S. District Court in Montana last week. The FCC unanimously approved the penalty against Rhodes in 2021, over nearly 5,000 spoofed robocalls he made in 2018. DOJ brought a case seeking to enforce the penalty in October (see 2101140044). Magistrate Judge Kathleen DeSoto rejected arguments from Rhodes -- who is representing himself in the case -- that the forfeiture should be dismissed as violating the First and Eighth amendments, and that there wasn’t enough evidence for the FCC’s ruling. Judge Dana Christensen upheld the magistrate judge’s ruling that the district court doesn’t have jurisdiction over the constitutionality of FCC rules, only U.S. circuit courts of appeal do. The 9th and 6th appeals courts have taken different tacks on whether a district court has jurisdiction over the constitutionality of an FCC order in a forfeiture matter, but Christensen said the 6th Circuit’s reasoning that they do isn’t “compelling.” The 6th Circuit had ruled that the lack of jurisdiction would deny property owners the right to defend themselves, but Rhodes isn’t barred from challenging the facts behind the forfeiture order in district court, only its constitutionality, said Christensen. However, the opinion also rejected Rhodes’ arguments on the factual basis for the penalty. “Rhodes's arguments construe the intent requirement of the statute too narrowly,” wrote Christensen. “The Complaint has alleged sufficient facts from which the Court can reasonably infer that Rhodes acted with the intent to wrongfully obtain something of value, such as publicity for his website and political ideology.”

U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner for New Jersey signed an order Friday (docket 3:22-cv-06435) directing Vonage to pay the FTC a $100 million monetary judgment within seven days to settle allegations it committed unfair acts or practices by failing to give consumers a “simple method” to cancel their telephone services. The agency also accused Vonage of failing to disclose “material transaction terms” before obtaining consumers’ billing information, and alleged the company imposed fees without customers’ consent. The court ordered Vonage to install a “simple mechanism” for consumers to avoid being charged for goods and services and to immediately stop any recurring charges. The mechanism must be easy to find and use, and “not require the consumer to take any action that is objectively unnecessary” to cancel a charge, said Castner’s order.

The state attorney general Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force has asked a state court in Indiana to enforce requests for documents and information from voice service providers Avid Telecom and One Eye, said a news release from North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) Tuesday. “These two companies have failed to respond to our investigative demands, and we’re alleging that their behavior breaks the law,” said Stein in the release. The petitions to enforce civil investigative demands (CIDs) filed in Marion County Circuit Court in Indiana allege that Avid knowingly accepted and routed illegal robocalls, and that One Eye’s CEO was previously involved with another company found to engage in illegal robocalls. “Both providers have either stopped answering or refused to answer the Task Force’s CIDs,” the release said.

New Jersey’s Bureau of Securities, coordinating with its counterparts in Alabama, Kentucky and Texas, issued a cease and desist order Thursday to halt an online entity operating from the former Soviet republic of Georgia from offering unregistered securities in the form of non-fungible tokens tied to an online slots game and the metaverse, said the office of Attorney General Matthew Platkin. The order directed the online entity, Slotie, to immediately stop offering NFTs purported to raise capital relating to online gaming and a metaverse in violation of New Jersey securities laws. The offerings, called Slotie NFTs and Slotie Junior NFTs, provide investors the right to “passively share revenues from an online slots game distributed to third-party casinos and the right to passively share in the profits,” it said. The bureau found that Slotie NFTs are securities and are not registered with the state, as required by law, it said. The bureau also found that Slotie is offering the unregistered securities “while fraudulently concealing material information from investors, including Slotie’s assets and liabilities, its anticipated use of capital, and key risks tied to NFTs and metaverses,” it said.