Hunton Retail Law Resource

October began with a CPSC announcement that a major retailer agreed to pay a $3.85M civil penalty for failing to report that a trash can it sold contained a defect or created an unreasonable risk of serious injury. The retailer sold 367,000 of the trash cans nationwide between December 2013 and May 2015. Allegedly the trash can’s plastic collar may dislodge, exposing a sharp edge and posing a laceration hazard to consumers. The retailer received 92 consumer complaints about this alleged defect but did not immediately notify the CPSC of the defect. The CPSC announced a recall of the trash can in July 2015. In addition to the civil penalty, the retailer agreed to maintain a compliance program and a system of internal controls and procedures to ensure it discloses information to the CPSC in accordance with applicable law. The Commission voted unanimously (4-0) to accept the settlement.

September ushered in a shift in political power at the CPSC with the confirmation of a new commissioner. In June, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Trump’s nomination of Dana Baiocco—a Republican—to the CPSC. Commissioner Baiocco’s appointment created the potential for a 2-2 voting tie if issues presented to the CPSC give rise to voting along party lines. One CPSC vacancy remained for which President Trump nominated Peter Feldman—another Republican—in June to both complete the remainder of former Commissioner Joe Mohorovic’s term, which expires in October 2019, and to serve a full seven-year term starting in October 2019. 

It has been a quiet month in the world of recalls with only 13 product recalls issued in June. Still, other CPSC-related news is noteworthy.

Last month, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Trump’s appointment of Dana Baiocco to serve as a CPSC commissioner. If political ideology translates into voting trends on consumer safety issues—and it may not—Baiocco’s appointment creates a potential 2-2 voting “tie” at the CPSC, with two Republican and two Democratic commissioners. Now, Trump seeks to add a third Republican to the CPSC. On June 4, 2018, Trump nominated Peter Feldman to be a commissioner. Feldman is senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and therefore advises on consumer protection, product safety, data and privacy issues. If confirmed, Feldman will complete the remainder of former Commissioner Joe Mohorovic’s term, which expires in October 2019. Feldman’s confirmation would mean that for the first time in nearly 12 years, Republican appointees would outnumber Democratic appointees at the CPSC. 

Oregon’s Fair Work Week Act (also known as Oregon’s predictive scheduling law) (the “Act”) is proceeding full speed ahead and will add significant challenges and costs for retailers. The majority of the Act goes into effect on July 1, 2018. Following similar ordinances regulating employee hours passed at municipal levels in Emeryville, California; New York City; San Francisco; San Jose; Seattle; and Washington, D.C., Oregon becomes the latest jurisdiction and the first state to enact a predictive scheduling law. 

The CPSC experienced a political shake-up this month when the U.S. Senate confirmed Dana Baiocco as the newest commissioner. In September, President Trump nominated Baiocco, a Republican and former partner at Jones Day, but the Senate did not act on the nomination by the end of the 2017 calendar year. So President Trump resubmitted his nomination of Baiocco in January. On May 22, 2018, the Senate confirmed Baiocco by a vote of 50-45, mostly along party lines. Her seven-year term will run through October of 2024.

April was an historic month for the CPSC. The agency approved a $27.25 million civil penalty—the largest in CPSC history. The significance of this record amount cannot be overstated. The previous record was held by a $15.45 million civil penalty approved in March of 2016. In fact, except for in 2016, the CPSC has never approved civil penalties that totaled $27.25 million in each of the last ten calendar years. Now, it is has done so in 2018 with just one civil penalty.

As reported on Hunton’s Employment and Labor Perspective blog, earlier this month San Francisco amended its Fair Chance Ordinance, the city and county’s so-called “ban-the-box” legislation that limits how private employers can use an applicant’s criminal history in employment decisions. The amendments, which take effect on October 1, 2018, expand the scope and penalties of the San Francisco ordinance and add to the growing framework of ban-the-box legislation across California and other states.

On the heels of a recent $5 million civil penalty, the CPSC recently secured a $1.5 million civil penalty with help from the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”). The civil penalty concludes a long saga between the CPSC and a large arts and crafts retailer about vases with allegedly defective thin glass that rendered them prone to shattering.

The CPSC has flexed its regulatory muscle during the first months of 2018 with respect to products that pose risks to children. With the U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DOJ’s”) help, the CPSC secured a $5 million civil penalty against a drug company for its allegedly deficient child-resistant packaging. In December, the DOJ filed a complaint in federal court against the drug company alleging that it knowingly violated the Poison Prevention Packaging Act and the Consumer Product Safety Act by distributing five household prescription drugs with non-compliant child-resistant packaging and failing to report the noncompliance to the CPSC. The complaint alleges that the drug company’s engineers drafted a “risk analysis” memo identifying the packaging as non-compliant. Rather than halt distribution and immediately report the non-compliance to the CPSC, the drug company continued distribution with non-compliant packaging while concurrently developing compliant packaging. The company also waited nearly 15 months before notifying the CPSC of its non-compliant packaging. In January, the federal court entered a consent decree for the matter. The drug company agreed to pay a $5 million civil penalty, implement and maintain a compliance program, and maintain and enforce a system of internal controls and procedures.

If 2017 is any indication, the new year will bring a fresh cascade of changes—both announced and unannounced, anticipated and unanticipated—in the business immigration landscape. Few, if any, of these changes are expected to be good news for U.S. businesses and the foreign workers they employ.

In 2017, while much of the news media focused on the Trump Administration’s draconian changes to practices and policies that affected the undocumented—including ending the DACA Dreamer program, shutting down Temporary Protected Status for citizens of countries ravished by war and natural disaster, and aggressively enforcing at the southern border and in “sensitive” locations such as churches, courthouses and homeless shelters—relatively less attention has been paid to the steady, incremental erosion of rights and options for legal immigrants, particularly those who are sponsored for work by U.S. employers, under the Administration’s April 2017 “Buy American/Hire American” executive order. There is no doubt that such restrictions to the legal immigration system will continue to cause business uncertainty and disruption in 2018. Here’s what to expect.

On November 10, 2017, the New York Department of Labor released a set of proposed regulations affecting the Minimum Wage Order for Miscellaneous Industries and Occupations, which applies to most employers, except hotels and restaurants.

In a move affecting manufacturers, distributors and retailers in the furniture and other wood-based industries, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) recently issued a series of amendments to its Final Rule implementing the Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act (the “Formaldehyde Final Rule”), which added Title VI to the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”). The Formaldehyde Final Rule, 40 CFR Part 770, sets formaldehyde emissions standards for composite wood products and includes requirements for the testing, third-party certification, import certification and labeling of covered products by manufacturers of those products. The Final Rule also imposes requirements on downstream fabricators, distributors and retailers to keep records for at least three years demonstrating that covered products they use, distribute and/or sell are TSCA Title VI-compliant.

Recently, in a case that should remind retailers and their suppliers to consider their First Amendment rights as they relate to the regulation of product labeling, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held in Ocheesee Creamery LLC v. Putnam, 851 F.3d 1228, that the actions of the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and the Chief of the Florida Bureau of Dairy Industry (the “State”) violated the dairy company’s First Amendment rights relating to use of the term “skim milk.”

On April 18, 2017, the state of Washington passed House Bill 1493 (“HB 1493”), which sets forth requirements for businesses who collect and use biometric identifiers for commercial purposes. Under HB 1493, a biometric identifier includes a fingerprint, voiceprint, retina, iris or other unique biological pattern or characteristic used to identify a specific individual. Commercial use includes “a purpose in furtherance of the sale or disclosure to a third party for the purpose of marketing of goods or services when such goods or services are unrelated to the initial transaction in which a person first gains possession of an individual’s biometric identifier.” This bill comes after several other states have passed similar legislation regulating the commercial use of biometric identifiers, including the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14) (“BIPA”) and the Texas Statute on the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. §503.001). 

This past week, several consumer actions made headlines that affect the retail industry.

NARB Permits Unilever’s Challenge of Colgate Palmolive’s Tom’s of Maine “Natural” Claims

The National Advertising Review Board (“NARB”), the appellate body of the advertising industry’s self-regulation system, upheld Unilever’s challenge regarding the truthfulness of Colgate Palmolive’s claims for Tom’s of Maine antiperspirant, despite the fact that the challenged claims were the subject of a court-ordered settlement in class action litigation. Unilever had challenged claims that Tom’s is “Naturally Dry,” “It really works. Naturally,” and “meets our stewardship model for safe, effective and natural” before the NAD. Colgate argued that the challenge should be dismissed based on NAD procedures for providing closure where the challenged claims are subject to pending litigation. The NARB found that the settlement order did not make any findings with respect to the claims challenged by Unilever, and that NAD’s exercise of jurisdiction posed no danger of conflicting court findings.

On March 14, 2017, the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 (the “Fairness Act”) will come into effect, 90 days after it was signed into law by President Obama. The Fairness Act voids any provision in a form contract between a consumer and a business that (1) restricts the consumer’s ability to leave reviews, (2) imposes penalties for leaving negative reviews or (3) transfers intellectual property rights in reviews or feedback content from the consumer to the business. The Fairness Act was passed in response to an increase in the use of so-called “non-disparagement clauses” that prohibited consumers from sharing their honest opinions about a seller’s goods, services or conduct.

On April 1, 2017, the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect of Securities Held with an Intermediary (the “Convention”) will become effective in the United States. The Convention will, as federal law of the U.S., apply to determine the choice of law relating to certain matters concerning securities held in securities accounts, including, among other things, the law affecting perfection and priority of security interests in securities held in securities accounts. This development is particularly noteworthy to retailers that maintain secured ...

On March 1, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) voted to approve final rules that will require public companies that file registration statements and reports subject to the exhibit requirements under Item 601 of Regulation S-K, or that file Forms F-10 or 20-F, to include a hyperlink to each exhibit listed in the exhibit index of these filings. To enable the inclusion of such hyperlinks, the new rules also require that registrants submit all such filings in HyperText Markup Language (“HTML”) format. The new rules are effective for filings submitted on or ...

Many online retailers are exploring how to use drones to quickly deliver online orders to customers. In June 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) issued a final rule permitting flights by commercial drones under certain conditions, including the drone and its cargo weigh less than 55 pounds and the drone stays within sight of the pilot. While the rule was a welcome step forward for the commercial drone industry, the operational restrictions prohibited drones to fly over any populated areas due to safety concerns, essentially forbidding commercial drones in most urban areas.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China enacted a new Cybersecurity Law in November 2016. The final Cybersecurity Law will apply to many multinational companies starting June 1, 2017.

On February 6, 2017, Acting SEC Chairman Michael Piwowar issued a statement instructing the SEC staff to reconsider the implementation of the SEC’s “pay ratio” rule based on any comments submitted and to determine as promptly as possible whether additional guidance or relief may be appropriate. Chairman Piwowar also opened a 45-day public comment period seeking input on any unexpected challenges that public companies have experienced as they prepare for compliance with the rule and whether relief is needed.

On January 25, 2017, Victoria Lipnic was appointed acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), and members of the legal community believe that her appointment could move the EEOC in a more management-friendly direction. Lipnic has served as a Commissioner of the EEOC since 2010, having been nominated by Barack Obama to two consecutive terms, the second of which is set to expire in 2020. Immediately prior to joining the EEOC, Lipnic was a management-side labor and employment attorney for an international law firm and also served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002 until 2009 under President George W. Bush. In that position, she oversaw the Wage and Hour Division, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs and the Office of Labor Management Standards.

As we previously reported, Kelly Faglioni, a partner in our Product Liability group, authored an article identifying and discussing approaches for managing risk that arises from complexity and ambiguity in product regulatory schemes including approaches to the question: “To recall or not to recall?”

As we previously reported, Kelly Faglioni, a partner in our Product Liability group, authored an article highlighting the sources of ambiguity in the law that governs products in the U.S. and discusses that ambiguity as a purposeful tool in the regulatory tool belt. This post discusses Part 2 of her article. 

Your product group is planning for the debut of the company’s most exciting new widget. Being responsible company citizens, the group checks in with the legal department to confirm the product regulatory and risk landscape. They start with the seemingly simple questions: “What are the applicable laws and regulations?” and “What are the foreseeable risk scenarios and associated damage potential?” Rather than answers, questions ensue. For example, what are the product components and/or ingredients? Will the product or its components contain anything toxic, corrosive, irritating, sensitizing, flammable or combustible? What are the foreseeable dangers associated with the product? What kind of product claims are envisioned? And so on.

As with other areas of the law, the recent presidential election will present both challenges and opportunities for retailers concerned with financial and securities regulation. While President-elect Trump did not articulate his views on financial services regulation on the campaign trail in any detailed manner, he did suggest that the Dodd-Frank Act should be repealed as it has increased costs for businesses, impeded economic growth and severely reduced lending without any clear benefits to investors or consumers.

On November 17, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission released a staff report assessing the issues confronting consumers and regulators stemming from the rise of peer-to-peer platforms such as Uber and Airbnb. The report, The ‘Sharing’ Economy: Issues Facing Platforms, Participants, and Regulators, describes how the Internet has allowed sellers and consumers to connect in order to provide services between individuals. For example, apps such as Uber and Lyft allow passengers to bypass traditional taxi services in favor of matching with an individual drivers. These services have had major disruptive effects on traditional industries.

After a long and unconventional campaign, we finally know the election results: early next year, businessman Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, supported by a Republican Congress. What the election results mean for the nation’s retailers, however, remains an open question. Trump, as a candidate, staked out bold policy positions on issues with potentially significant effects on retailers. Both positive and negative developments on a wide range of issues are possible over the next four years. Once sworn in, Trump will have considerable latitude to implement his policies through executive branch agencies and their enforcement priorities. In other instances, however, he will require support from the 115th Congress, and in some instances his actions could be constrained by the effect of appointments and policy choices made by the Obama administration and the 114th Congress.

In a continued effort to implement the policy change announced by President Obama on December 17, 2014, to engage and empower the Cuban people, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has announced additional amendments to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations. These amendments, which went into effect on October 17, 2016, constitute the sixth time that the various sets of regulations governing Cuba have been amended.

Recently, the EEOC has announced the approval of a revised EEO-1 report (“Revised Report”), applying to the 2017 calendar year with the first report due by March 31, 2018. In addition to the disclosures required by the current EEO-1 report, the Revised Report will require employers with 100 or more employees to provide compensation data and the number of hours worked by employees across 12 separate pay bands, categorized by gender, race and ethnicity. The current EEO-1 report only collects data regarding the number of employees categorized by gender, race and ethnicity in 10 different job groupings.

On September 12, 2016, the House of Representatives passed the Consumer Review Fairness Act (the “Fairness Act”), aimed at preventing companies from penalizing consumers who post negative reviews online. The law is a response to non-disparagement clauses such as the one challenged by the FTC in litigation filed last year against Roca Labs, Inc.

Last month, legislation seeking to reduce private litigation under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), regarding accessibility barriers for disabled citizens in public accommodations, passed the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 15 to 6. Industry sources applaud the proposed legislation as a defense against serial nuisance suits by unscrupulous lawyers and plaintiffs, while advocates of the disabled claim it is an unfair new hurdle to private action under the ADA.

President Obama signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (“Lautenberg Act”) into law in June 2016, amending the core provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”) for the first time in nearly 40 years. Last month, Hunton & Williams detailed how the Lautenberg Act considerably broadens the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA’s”) authority to evaluate chemical safety and regulate use of chemicals in all stages of the supply chain, including manufacturing, distribution and retail sale. Within six months, EPA must select at least 10 chemical substances and begin risk evaluations on them. EPA must also classify chemicals – including those currently in the retail supply chain – as “high priority” or “low priority” for review, and begin risk evaluations on 20 high priority chemicals within the next three and a half years.

If you live in an urban environment, you have likely seen food trucks on city streets, in parking lots or at any number of local events. The mobile food industry has grown significantly over the last few years and, with that growth, vendors and their brick-and-mortar competition have been faced with a changing regulatory landscape. 

On April 13, 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) published its long-awaited concept release on the reform of Regulation S-K. Regulation S-K is the primary set of rules that establish disclosure requirements for public companies.

For the SEC, a “concept release” is an advance notice of proposed rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. Thus, before taking any further action to amend its rulebook, the SEC will be required to issue a set of proposed rules, elicit further public comment and then adopt final rules in another release.

On April 14, 2016, after four years of drafting and negotiations, the long awaited EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) has been adopted at the EU level. Following the EU Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs’ vote earlier this week and the EU Parliament in plenary session, the GDPR is now officially EU law and will directly apply in all EU countries, replacing EU and national data protection legislation.

After a February 2015 proposed rulemaking (the “NPRM”) faced a firestorm of comments, the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) has determined “that further engagement with industry and stakeholders is needed” before any attempt is made to finalize regulations for very small unmanned aircraft systems, also known as “Micro UAS.” In response, the FAA chartered the Micro UAS Aviation Rulemaking Committee (“ARC”) to continue the review process and prepare recommendations to the FAA for future rulemakings. As originally conceived by the NPRM, Micro UAS are drones weighing less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) that are constructed of malleable materials that will break, bend or “yield on impact so as to present a minimal hazard to any person or object.” The Micro UAS ARC was formed amidst pressure from drone manufacturers and commercial users to appropriately balance safety and privacy concerns with wider drone use.

As reported in the Hunton Employment and Labor Law Blog, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), employers who use a tip credit to satisfy their minimum wage obligations for tipped employees must follow certain rules related to those tips. One of those rules relates to the use of tip pools – i.e., pooling of tips received by multiple tipped employees and then dividing the total among the pool participants based on a specified formula. Under Section 3(m) of the FLSA, employers who rely on the tip credit and who require their tipped employees to contribute their tips to a tip-pooling arrangement must ensure that the only employees who participate in the pool are those that “customarily and regularly” receive tips. This typically means that managers, hostesses, cooks, dishwashers and other non-tipped employees cannot participate in the tip pool if the employer wants to rely on the FLSA’s tip credit.

This week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2010 Colorado law (Colo. Rev. Stat. §39-21-112.3.5) requiring out-of-state retailers that do not collect sales tax from Colorado consumers to report transactions to state taxing authorities, in an effort to boost state “use tax” compliance. The Colorado statute requires out-of-state retailers to (1) remind consumers with each transaction that their purchase may be subject to state “use tax” laws; (2) deliver an “annual purchase summary” to any customers with transactions totaling greater than $500 in any year; and (3) annually report the transaction information to state taxing authorities. There is an exception for "retailers who made less than $100,000 in total gross sales in Colorado in the previous calendar year, and who reasonably expect gross sales in the current calendar year to be less than $100,000."

This month, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (“RILA”) submitted comments to the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) opposing a point-of-sale registration requirement for recreational drones. While the trade association generally supports the registration of drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems, RILA called the point-of-sale registration process “costly, inefficient, and difficult to implement” while warning of potential data privacy concerns for consumers.

As reported in the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives Blog, Retailer Big Lots Stores, Inc. is facing a putative class action in Philadelphia, wherein the plaintiff alleges that the company “systematically” violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s (“FCRA”) “standalone disclosure requirement” by making prospective employees sign a document used as a background check consent form that contained extraneous information. Among other things, the plaintiff alleges that Big Lots’ form violates the FCRA because it includes the following three categories of ...

On Monday, October 19, US Transportation Secretary Anthony R. Foxx and FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta announced the formation of a task force charged with developing recommendations for a registration system for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (the “Task Force”). The Task Force will be directed to deliver its report by November 20. In connection with the announcement, the secretary and the administrator also issued a Clarification of the Applicability of Aircraft Registration Requirements for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Request for Information Regarding Electronic Registration for UAS (the “CRFI”), which was published in the Federal Register on Thursday, October 22. Through the CRFI, the agencies seek, for the first time, to impose the aircraft registration requirement on “model aircraft,” including recreational UAS, effective immediately, while also soliciting comments from industry and the public on the nature and parameters of the UAS registration process. Comments must be submitted by November 6 in order to be considered by the Task Force.

An important Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decision was announced yesterday that trains a spotlight on claims of “biodegradability.” The FTC found that a manufacturer’s unsubstantiated claims regarding the biodegradability of plastic pellets used as product additives deceived industry and end-use customers. The case reemphasizes the FTC’s intent to enforce the FTC Act against unsupported “green” claims. For retailers and consumer product manufacturers, this case and the recent increase in consumer false advertising class actions emphasizes the importance of:

• due diligence regarding product claims made by vendors – ask for and maintain material to back up the claims and stick to the claims that can be supported; and
• strong indemnities against false and deceptive advertising claims.

The supply of a medicinal product without a marketing authorisation under national provisional permissions of use does not generally prevent an SPC.

The scope of protection of an SPC for a virus may be broader than the specific virus strain mentioned in the marketing authorization.

Today, the EFTA Court ruled on two important SPC issues that were raised in the Intervet case (E – 16/14). The case concerns, on the one hand, the supply of a veterinary vaccine without a marketing authorisation (‘MA’) under successive national provisional permissions of use in order to fight a ...

As reported in the Privacy & Information Security Law blog, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement of at least $90 million with mobile phone carrier T-Mobile USA, Inc. (“T-Mobile”) stemming from allegations related to mobile cramming. This settlement amount will primarily be used to provide refunds to affected customers who were charged by T-Mobile for unauthorized third party charges. As part of the settlement, T-Mobile also will pay $18 million in fines and penalties to the attorneys general of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and $4.5 million to the ...

Most marketers and retailers know that the consumer protection laws require that their advertising claims be substantiated, truthful and not misleading. But the new year is a good time to take stock of advertising campaigns, practices and procedures to make sure they pass muster under the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) latest guidance. The FTC’s recent enforcement actions provide a starting point.

Read the full client alert.

California’s Safer Consumer Products (SCP) regulations became effective October 1, 2013. These regulations apply to any “product or part of the product that is used, bought, or leased for use by a person for any purposes.” Given this ample language, the regulations have the potential to affect a wide range of industries and parties in a distribution chain, including manufacturers, assemblers, importers, and even retailers.

Read the full client alert.