SCOTUS: No Equitable Monetary Relief For FTC Under § 13(b)

Well, the buck stops here (for now). Last week, in AMG Capital Management, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act does not authorize the FTC to obtain equitable monetary relief such as restitution or disgorgement. This highly anticipated landmark decision reverses decades of precedent and strips the FTC of one of its key enforcement tools for obtaining consumer redress. The decision will likely represent a sea change in FTC enforcement practices.

How did we get here? In 2012, the FTC sued race car driver Scott Tucker and a payday lending company he ran, AMG Capital Management (collectively, Tucker). The FTC alleged that Tucker engaged in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act by failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose that the loans issued would automatically renew, even after the customer paid off the loan, unless the customer