FTC Proposes Amendments to Fair Packaging and Labeling Act Rules

If your company sells consumer products, you'll want to take a look at the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC's) proposed amendments to its Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) rules announced on January 22, 2015. The most significant proposed change is eliminating the rules on certain price representations -- the cents off, introductory offer, and economy size rules -- because they are no longer common in the marketplace and the Commission has other means for policing deceptive price representations.

The other proposed amendments clarify and modernize some other rules. The proposal allows companies to omit their street addresses from the label if their addresses are available through any well-known, widely published, and publicly available resource, including printed directories, electronic databases, and websites. Currently, the rules require a listing in a city or telephone directory. Under the proposal, the rules would explicitly acknowledge that products exempted from the rules may be subject to state labeling laws. (The Act and rules supersede state laws that impose different or less stringent requirements.) The proposed amendments also adopt a more comprehensive metric conversion chart, and clarify that exponents can be used with customary U.S., as well as metric, units.

The FTC is accepting comments on the proposed amendments through March 30, 2015.

© Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP 2015 All Rights Reserved. This blog post is intended to be a general summary of the law and does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with counsel to determine applicable legal requirements in a specific fact situation.