Federal Trade Commission

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The Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act. Its principal mission is the promotion of consumer protection and the elimination and prevention of anticompetitive business practices.

The Federal Trade Commission Act was one of President Wilson's major acts against trusts. Trusts and trust-busting were significant political concerns during the Progressive Era. Since its inception the FTC has enforced the provisions of the Clayton Act, a key antitrust statute, as well as the provisions of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 40 et seq. Over time, the FTC has been delegated the enforcement of additional business regulation statutes and has promulgated a number of regulations (codified in Title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations).

1 Organization of the Federal Trade Commission
2 Federal Trade Commissioners
3 FTC Chairmen and Commissioners
4 Bureau of Consumer Protection
5 Bureau of Competition
6 Bureau of Economics
7 Activities of the FTC
8 Bibliography
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] Organization of the Federal Trade Commission

The FTC is headed by five Commissioners. Day-to-day operations are run by the Office of the Executive Director. Three bureaus carry out the FTC's substantive work: the Bureau of Consumer Protection, the Bureau of Competition, and the Bureau of Economics. Additional arms of the FTC lend further support to its work. The Office of General Counsel advises the Commission on legal matters and represents the Commission in court. The Office of Administrative Law Judges furnishes the officials who adjudicate administrative proceedings at the FTC. The Regional Offices of the FTC perform work relating to the consumer protection and antitrust missions of the agency.^[1]

[edit] Federal Trade Commissioners

The Federal Trade Commission is headed by five Commissioners who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Under the FTC Act, no more than three Commissioners may be from the same political party. A Commissioner's term of office is seven years, and the terms are staggered so that in a given year at most one Commissioner's term expires (although in certain years, no Commissioner's term expires, and in years where Commissioners choose to step down, more than one new Commissioner may be named). In addition, the Federal Trade Commission runs an "Honors" paralegal program, reputed to be one of the most lucrative and competitive jobs on the market. The Honors paralegals are selected from amongst the best and brightest college graduates in the country.

[edit] FTC Chairmen and Commissioners

Deborah Platt Majoras was sworn in on August 16, 2004, as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.

Majoras joined the FTC from Jones Day in Washington, DC, where she served as a partner in the firm’s antitrust section. While at Jones Day, she worked on a variety of antitrust counseling and civil and criminal litigation matters, including mergers and acquisitions, monopolization, price-fixing, distribution issues, and governmental investigations. Majoras also was a member of the firm’s technology issues practice and has participated in a variety of non-antitrust commercial disputes and criminal cases, including fraud, securities violations, and employment discrimination.

In April 2001, Majoras was appointed deputy assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division. She was named principal deputy in November 2002. During her three-year tenure, she oversaw matters involving numerous industries including software, financial networks, defense, health care, media and entertainment, banking, and industrial equipment. She also served as chair of the International Competition Network’s (ICN) Merger Working Group and oversaw policy initiatives such as the FTC/DOJ Health Care Hearings, DOJ’s Merger Review Process Initiative, and the Mergers Best Practices Project. She is a frequent speaker on competition policy to national and international audiences.

Majoras graduated summa cum laude from Westminster College and received her J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1989, where she was awarded Order of the Coif and served as an editor of UVA’s Law Review. She is a member of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law, where she recently served as vice chair of the Section 2 Committee and as a member of the Long-Range Planning Committee. Majoras also served as a non-governmental advisor to the ICN and was named by President Bush to serve on the Antitrust Modernization Commission.

Majoras was preceded in office by Timothy Muris, a Republican, and Robert Pitofsky, a Democrat.

The remaining four Commissioners presently serving at the FTC are Pamela Jones Harbour, Jon Leibovitz, William Kovacic, and J. Thomas Rosch.

Notable past FTC Commissioners include:

Orson Swindle, a former Vietnam POW who resided in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton";
Current U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole;
Caspar Weinberger, a member of the cabinet in the Nixon and Reagan administrations;
Terry Calvani, current Chair of the Irish Competition Authority;
Mary Gardiner Jones, the first female Commissioner, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson; and
Leon Higginbotham, the first African-American Commissioner, and a distinguished jurist in federal trial and appellate courts.

[edit] Bureau of Consumer Protection

The Bureau of Consumer Protection’s mandate is to protect consumers against unfair or deceptive practices in commerce. With the consent of the Commission, Bureau attorneys enforce federal laws related to consumer affairs as well as rules promulgated by the FTC. Its functions include investigations, enforcement actions, and consumer and business education. Areas of principal concern for this bureau are: advertising and marketing, financial products and practices, telemarketing fraud, privacy and identity protection, and the enforcement of previous Commission orders against recidivists and hardened "scofflaws." The bureau also is responsible for the United States National Do Not Call Registry.

Under the FTC Act, the Commission has the authority, in most cases, to bring its actions in federal court through its own attorneys. In some consumer protection matters, the FTC appears with, or supports, the U.S. Department of Justice.

The current Director of the bureau is Lydia Parnes.

[edit] Bureau of Competition

The Bureau of Competition is the division of the FTC charged with elimination and prevention of anticompetitve business practices. It accomplishes this through the enforcement of antitrust laws, review of proposed mergers, and investigation into other non-merger business practices that may impair competition. Such non-merger practices include horizontal restraints, involving agreements between direct competitors, and vertical restraints, involving agreements among businesses at different levels in the same industry (such as suppliers and commercial buyers).

The FTC shares enforcement of antitrust laws with the Department of Justice. However, while the FTC is responsible for civil enforcement of antitrust laws, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice has the power to bring both civil and criminal action in antitrust matters.

[edit] Bureau of Economics

The Bureau of Economics is responsible for advising the FTC on the economic effects of its regulation of industry as well as government regulation of competition and consumer protection generally. Additionally, the bureau provides statistical analysis for use in enforcement proceedings.

[edit] Activities of the FTC

The FTC carries out its mission by investigating issues raised by reports from consumers and businesses, premerger notification filings, congressional inquiries, or reports in the media. These issues include, for instance, false advertising and other forms of fraud. FTC investigations may pertain to a single company or an entire industry. If the results of the investigation reveal unlawful conduct, the FTC may seek voluntary compliance by the offending business through a consent order, file an administrative complaint, or initiate federal litigation. Under the FTC Act, the federal courts retain their traditional authority to issue equitable relief, including the appointment of receivers, monitors, the imposition of asset freezes to guard against the spoliation of funds, immediate access to business premises to preserve evidence, and other relief including financial disclosures and expedited discovery. In numerous cases, the FTC employs this authority to combat serious consumer deception or fraud. Additionally, the FTC has rulemaking power to address concerns regarding industry-wide practices. Rules promulgated under this authority are known as Trade Regulation Rules.

In the mid 1990s, the FTC launched the fraud sweeps concept where the agency and its federal, state, and local partners filed simultaneous legal actions against multiple telemarketing fraud targets. The first sweeps operation was Project Telesweep [1] in July 1995 which cracked down on 100 business opportunity scams.

In 1984 the FTC began to regulate the funeral service industry in order to protect consumers from deceptive practices such as "tying." A major regulation by the FTC in this area requires funeral homes to provide all customers (and potential customers) with a General Price List, specifically outlining goods and services in the funeral industry, as defined by the FTC, and a listing of their prices. By law, the General Price List must be presented to all individuals that ask, no one is to be denied a written, retainable copy of the GPL.

The FTC is also famous for having one of the best cafeterias in all of Washington. Cheekily named the "Top of the Trade" ("ToTT") due to its lofty location on the top floor of the FTC's headquarters, it provides diners with an unparalleled view of some of DC's most beautiful and important buildings, such as the Canadian Embassy. Said a paralegal, "Nothing gets me more motivated to get back to work after a hearty lunch than the sight of a red maple leaf, floating peacefully with the Capitol in the background." The ToTT is famous for its culinary creations, and its confusingly Greek Menu. Their specialties include the souvlaki, which is really a kebab, and the Greek salad, with is a mound of iceberg lettuce, with a little feta cheese and a stuffed grape leaf for authenticity's sake. The menu specials change daily, and some favorites include the BBQ sandwich, which has a special crunch provided by the leftover bones in the pulled pork. Another favorite is the taco casserole, which consists of several layers of chips and salso, covered in sour cream, in turn covered with cheese whiz. Delicious.. The ToTT is a great to have lunch with friends and coworkers, but it is an even better place to quietly meditate over your stale-bread hamburger. The ToTT facilitates meditation by constantly playing low-volume smooth jazz, which is rotation of Barry White, Gnarls Barkley, and a hundred different saxophone songs. And Sade sometimes too. Around Christmas, they switch to Christmas music, mashed-up with the sax solos, to create a horrendous new genre calles "smooth Christmas". Sorry, "smooth holidays". If you bring your own lunch, you can heat it up in the conveniently located microwave, as long as it only needs to be heated up for 20 seconds or less. More than that, and it blows up, meaning that the technicians have to be called in to reset, before it blows up again 20 seconds later. Also, bring your own plastic silverware. If you get caught taking theirs, they cut off one of your fingers. Finally, make sure you have appropriately small bills. The 20's and above are very complicated for them to handle.

[edit] Bibliography

G. Cullom Davis. "The Transformation of the Federal Trade Commission, 1914-1929," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 49, No. 3. (Dec., 1962), pp. 437-455. in JSTOR