Consumer Protection

Services In-Depth

Our consumer protection lawyers provide counsel in the following key areas, among others.

Unfair Business Practice/False Advertising Claims

Our lawyers regularly defend corporations in a range of industries against claims of false advertising and unfair business practices. We defend companies under investigation by the FTC and other agencies in the areas of advertising & marketing practices, privacy, service industry practices, telemarketing and credit practices.

When our clients are the subject of an FTC inquiry, our practitioners are adept at handling the necessary factual investigation, advocating before relevant decision-makers, and, when necessary, negotiating consent decrees or defending the enforcement complaints, if filed. We represent client interests in rulemaking procedures, policy studies and reports, industrywide investigations and legislative activity. Our FTC-focused lawyers frequently collaborate with our Congress-focused lobbying & public policy advisors on these matters.

We advise on a range of FTC issues, such as behavioral advertising and shopper data tracking, use of social media and influencers to advertise, rebate and pricing practices, deceptive advertising, including health benefit claims on food products and sufficient substantiation for any claims, financial regulation and credit reporting, and privacy, both related to data breach investigations and recent legislative activity.

Consumer Class Actions

Our consumer class action litigators have a well-established track record of success in defeating putative consumer class actions. Our team has obtained numerous victories in consumer class actions, at trial and in advance of trial, through dismissals with prejudice at the pleadings stage, summary judgment motions, voluntary dismissals by plaintiffs after we obtained key admissions in discovery and countless denials of class certification.

We have a strong and creative bench of trial lawyers who defend private consumer protection actions based on state consumer protection statutes, the Lanham Act and/or common-law causes of action. Our litigators efficiently handle discovery, including the ever-burgeoning issues related to ediscovery.

Our lawyers have successfully applied well-honed strategies to defeat putative consumer class actions. Indeed, we pride ourselves on obtaining early, definitive and favorable resolution of class action cases and using a host of innovative legal tactics to get those results.

We have deep and broad experience litigating class actions alleging claims brought under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL), the Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) and false advertising laws, as well as numerous other states’ unfair business practice laws.

Product Safety

Consumer product safety issues pose time-sensitive challenges for global manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers. Responding to such incidents often requires quick thinking and the management of simultaneous recalls in multiple jurisdictions to protect consumers and the brand name. 

Akin’s multidisciplinary global team assists clients in designing and implementing product safety recalls and compliance programs with a global reach. Before the CPSC in the United States and regulators in other jurisdictions, our attorneys have successfully represented leading manufacturers that operate in a variety of industries, including those that produce lithium batteries, wooden furniture and automotive tires.

We also have deep experience litigating product liability issues. In the United States, Akin has helped numerous clients successfully ward off liability claims, thereby preventing financial and reputational harm. Our lawyers have significant experience handling consumer class actions in this area.

Drawing on Akin’s wealth of experience in policy & legislative affairs, we also advise clients on policy reforms and legislative changes that could affect global product safety compliance.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Our consumer class action litigators regularly defend companies in class actions brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and advise companies with regard to compliance and risk avoidance under the TCPA. We also have substantial experience advising clients regarding other laws governing marketing in the communications channels, such as the Telemarketing Sales Rule and Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act.

Fair Credit Reporting Act

Our class action litigators also regularly defend companies in class action litigation brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and advise companies regarding how to comply with and minimize liability under FCRA. Recent years have seen a surge of FCRA class actions, brought by plaintiffs’ counsel attracted to what they perceive to be a strict liability statute and significant minimum statutory penalties.

Consumer Data Privacy

Our lawyers are also experienced in evaluating contemplated marketing activities to ensure compliance with federal and state privacy laws, assisting with data breach investigations, defending putative consumer class actions arising out of allegations concerning the use of consumer data or misleading privacy claims and defending companies under investigation by the FTC with respect to privacy issues. We frequently interact with FTC staff, including the lawyers of the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection.

We handle matters involving section 5 of the FTC Act, the federal statute that is closest to imposing general privacy obligations under U.S. law, as well as more focused consumer privacy statutes such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Representative Work

• Attacked the standing of named plaintiffs to pursue claims on behalf of a class, both pre- and post-Spokeo, based on failure to allege injury.
• Defeated efforts to certify a nationwide class based on choice-of-law issues.
• Used consumer survey data, industry experts, key admissions from plaintiffs’ depositions and publicly available information to demonstrate the existence of individual issues.
• Transferred the venue for putative class actions to locations and jurisdictions that were unfavorable to the named plaintiffs.
• Enforced arbitration agreements with named plaintiffs containing class action waivers.
• Challenged novel theories of liability to achieve voluntary dismissal of class actions in the preliminary stages.
• Secured dismissals with prejudice of putative class actions after showing that plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege the elements of justifiable reliance or fraudulent intent necessary to sustain fraud claims.
• Significantly narrowed the size of classes at the class certification stage, thereby reducing damages exposure and increasing settlement leverage.
• Secured voluntary dismissal of a putative class action and convinced the FTC to close a related investigation after taking aggressive action with plaintiffs’ counsel and putting together quick, persuasive advocacy at the FTC.
• Defended a company in a privacy case of first impression against the FTC in administrative court and secured $0 and a no injunctive relief settlement when discovery showed weaknesses in the FTC theories.
• Convinced the FTC to abandon numerous consumer protection investigations or to settle them with our clients not paying any fines or damages and merely agreeing not to violate the FTC Act in the future.
• Represented a leading manufacturer of lithium batteries in a voluntary global recall, including proceedings before the CPSC, Health Canada, and product safety regulators in Europe and Asia.
• Represented a major automotive tires company in a NHTSA recall, and provided post-recall product safety compliance advice.
• Represented a global supplier of wooden furniture in a CPSC recall, and counseled the company on federal and state product safety laws and legislative actions.