United States Supreme Court Defangs FTC in Explosive Decision

The United States Supreme Court issued an explosive decision in AMG Capital Management, LLC et al v Federal Trade Commission, invalidating the Commission’s attempt and assumed power to pursue equitable monetary relief such as restitution or disgorgement under 13(b).

Held: Section 13(b) does not authorize the Commission to seek, or a court to award, equitable monetary relief such as restitution or disgorgement. Pp. 3–15.

The immediate result is that the FTC’s largest judgment in history ($1.3 billion) against the companies belonging to payday lending kingpin Scott Tucker, has been undone.

The larger implication is that all of the FTC’s pending lawsuits seeking such relief against defendants under 13(b) are in mortal peril.

“Nothing we say today, however, prohibits the Commission from using its authority under §5 and §19 to obtain restitution on behalf of consumers,” the Court said. “If the Commission believes that authority too cumbersome or otherwise inadequate, it is, of course, free to ask Congress to grant it further remedial authority.”

Over the past five years alone, the FTC has refunded $11.2B to consumers through awards granted under 13(b).

Scott Tucker is currently in prison serving time for charges related to the FTC lawsuit. He was the subject in a Netflix Series called “Dirty Money” in 2018.

This story will be updated…

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.