Home products retailer Williams-Sonoma will have to pay almost $3.2 million penalty for violating a Federal Trade Commission “Made in USA” order.

Home products retailer Williams-Sonoma will have to pay almost $3.2 million for violating a Federal Trade Commission “Made in USA” order.

Williams-Sonoma was charged with advertising multiple products as being “Made in USA” when they were in fact manufactured in other countries, including China. That violated a 2020 commission order requiring the San Francisco-based company to be truthful about whether its products were in fact made in the U.S.

The FTC said Friday that Williams-Sonoma has agreed to a settlement, which includes a $3.175 million civil penalty. That marks the largest-ever civil penalty seen in a “Made in USA” case, the commission said.

“Williams-Sonoma’s deception misled consumers and harmed honest American businesses,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said. “Today’s record-setting civil penalty makes clear that firms committing Made-in-USA fraud will not get a free pass.”

In addition to paying the penalty, the seller of cookware and home furnishings will be required to submit annual compliance reports, the FTC said. The settlement also imposes and reinforces a number of requirements about manufacturing claims the company can make.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    51·
    2 months ago

    If a dispensary lied for years about where it sourced its weed and went bankrupt due to the fines, I wouldn’t shed any tears there either.

    False advertising should be given zero tolerance. And it isn’t, which is why people keep dying in Teslas using the Autopilot mode.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      2 months ago

      OK, and if the dispensary violated DEA regulations for years should it likewise be fined out of existence?

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          2 months ago

          Violating DEA regulations often kills people in some circumstances.

          It’s true that a cannabis dispensary is unlikely to kill someone, but the same is true of a “Made in the USA” label.

          If the specific circumstances of a violation matter for a dispensary, then they should also matter for WSM. Dispensaries don’t sell narcotics, and WSM doesn’t sell Teslas.