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.
In 2023, the global net revenue of Williams-Sonoma amounted to over 7.7 billion U.S. dollars
https://www.statista.com/statistics/246591/net-revenue-of-williams-sonoma-worldwide/
Once again, a corporation breaking the law can just write it off as the cost of doing business.
All I’m hearing is that made in USA is a meaningless label because it’s cost-effective to simply apply it and pay the fine if they ever get to you. Corporations mis using the label can breathe a sigh of relief. No real punishment inbound.
Hey, that’s not telling the whole story!
Made in the USA can mean unpaid prison slave labor too.
The bottom line is operating income, not revenue. And WSM had an operating income of ~$1.5 billion last year.
The FTC found seven products were falsely advertised, starting with a mattress cover. But Pottery Barn sells over 10,000 products, in fact there are over 500 products in their bedding section alone. And Pottery Barn is just one part of WSM.
It’s near certain that a $3 million fine wiped out whatever profit these seven products made for WSM, and then cut into profits made by other products. So breaking the law was not a profitable strategy for WSM.
The punishment should be calculated based on gross revenue from the product. Not net profit. 50% of gross revenue sounds good.
Why? We want to disincentivize malicious business practices, and fines proportional or greater to earnings from those practices are more than enough to convince a for-profit corporation to keep it clean.
fines proportional or greater to earnings from those practices are more than enough to convince a for-profit corporation to keep it clean.
Lol. This is the real world, and it’s already proven that the current system is inadequate, it is not enough to stop companies from doing it.
The fact that companies keep continuing to do it is the proof. The fines are NOT enough to disincentivize the practice. The current fines are still less than the benefit the company receives from the act, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.
Bullshit like false advertising should have a dramatic punishment, not a slap on the wrist. I don’t give a shit if it bankrupts a business. A business lying to their customers should destroy it. If they want to take a chance at destroying the entire business over something as small as a fake label, they can decide to roll those dice, but don’t be surprised when they lose it all.
As a whole you’re correct, it often is inadequate, but in this very specific case of 7 products including some teen bed-padding, then the fines seem pretty proportional.
It depends on how much they made from these products. If the profit from the sale of those products is more than the $3.2M in fines, it is still just a cost that can be planned for when determining sale price and margins. The penalty needs to be higher than the profit from the deceptive practice or else it’s just a cost that can be planned for, not a real deterrent.
According to their 10-K end of year SEC Filing they made $1.7 Bn cash inflow profits, which resulted in a $1.3 Bn cash balance.
So, hypothetically, if they had made 3.175 Million net profit on selling one of their hundreds of types of bedding products, one of thousands of types of products total, then it would be 1/500th of their total profits across their many brand names and stores, or another possible scenario would be if everything else they sold at a cost and they actually did make this much profit from this specific bedding.
They actually saw a 9.9% decline in net revenue that year, attributed to store closures.
Of course 50% of gross revenue would immediately bankrupt WSM.
But if you still think that’s an appropriate deterrent, what if we imposed the same penalty on cannabis dispensaries? After all, they are not simply violating FTC regulations, they are engaged in federal felonies.
Of course 50% of gross revenue would immediately bankrupt WSM.
And? Is a housewares store too big to fail?
No, but causing a business to fail is not necessarily the best response to a violation. I don’t want WSM to fail over “made in the USA” labels for the same reason I don’t want dispensaries to shut down.
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.
OK, and if the dispensary violated DEA regulations for years should it likewise be fined out of existence?
If punishment are severe then the corporations would look twice before committing fraud and deception. If not it’s just another slap on the wrist
I think a fine of $3 million is more than a slap on the wrist. It’s a lot more than whatever benefit WSM got from “made in the USA” labels.
That’s the problem the companies don’t fear the consequences for their action. If the fine was huge enough to bankrupt a company. Then the other companies will take a second guess before committing any fraud or deception against the consumers like you and me.
I wish people would be open to changing their opinions when new information is introduced, instead they’re just downvoting you because they don’t want justice they want to be mad.
The important part, to me, is that they must now submit annual compliance reports.
But the fine for lying in the reports is the same as this fine: much, much lower than the profits. The fines are inconsequential, so fake reports are also inconsequential.
The FTC has no teeth here. No one will be jailed. The fines will never be more than a fraction of a penny on the dollar. So, the required reports and even the fines mean nothing at all. Nothing. Even the bad press is likely to help them sell more goods.
Laws without teeth are not laws.
That’s wrong, actually. The fine they got last time was much smaller than this one, the fine they get next time can be expected to be even larger. The $3.175 Mn penalty for the 7 specific items sold with improper labeling is a new record for this specific violation.
Fines are not tax deductible. So no it’s not a cost of doing business.
What? Sure you can’t deduct them, but if I make $200 million doing something illegal, and the government catches me and fines me $10 million, then that’s just a “cost” I can account for. Make $190 million even after spending $10 million in fines.
Did they make 200 million selling those products ?
7.7b in revenue for the year, probably.
On a handful of products? Doubtful.
At least the government gave them a fine which is a step in the right direction. Country of origin is important to me. I buy based on those labels
The conversational phrase “cost of doing business” does not mean the same thing as the tax law phrase “business expense”.
Write off means write off the books. Otherwise it makes no sense as that the dictionary term for the phrase. You can’t write off a fine. It isn’t “written off”.
Real the whole paragraph. It’s idiotic talk
“Write off” has evolved to have an additional, more casual meaning, and I think it was clear to most of us that the author you’re referring to was using it in that sense.
Edit: Since you’re being pedantic, I checked three dictionaries. This sense of the phrase is in all of them.
Tax deductibility is irrelevant; the cost of the practice pales in comparison to the profit of the practice, making the cost one of doing business.
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Words do have meaning. It isn’t our fault that you don’t know what those words mean.
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You don’t seem to understand what “write it off” means though, which is why you’re getting piled on.
Nobody is talking about taxes except you.
Well they should pick up a dictionary and learn what the word means.
That’s like, what… The cost of three “Made in USA” Williams Sonoma credenzas?
You spelled “three plastic spatulas” wrong.
That’s why I always get my spatulas from Spatula City! In fact, if you buy nine spatulas, you get the tenth one for just one penny!
Shut up! 10 for the price of 9, hell YES! I am totally phoning in my order now. Operators are standing by you know.
For real I had that written out but couldn’t remember if they sold spatulas.
The 7 products found to be made outside of the USA probably didn’t make enough net profit to cover these fines much less the mandatory annual compliance reports.
Keep in mind this is out of brands including “Goldtouch, Rejuvenation, Pottery Barn Teen and Pottery Barn Kids brands” which is a lot of products, so if anything this report shows they’re honest 97% of the time. To me, that’s a lot more surprising.
Oh wow a whole 3.2 million.
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.
THATS NOT A BRAG YOU WORTHLESS FUCKS
It’s not even the company’s first fine for similar misbehavior.
If the fine isn’t big enough to act as a deterrent, it’s almost like granting permission to do it again.
If you’re rich enough, a fine is never a deterrent.
It is if you consider it was exactly 7 products out of everything in the brands “Goldtouch, Rejuvenation, Pottery Barn Teen and Pottery Barn Kids brands”. They’re almost certainly losing a lot more than they profited.
They broke the rules, they got fined, they broke the rules again, the fines went up and now they have to submit annual compliance reports. That seems good to me, if they do it again we fine them again and more every time.
Who cares if it takes a bite out of the profits for those 7 items? The company did something illegal.
If they lose money by doing an illegal, and their sole motivation is to make more money, then why would they choose to keep doing it? And, this is the second time they’ve been fined and the fine is already at a new record, plus they have to submit annual compliance reports or the next fine will be another new record.
Did you miss the part where they made over a billion dollars in profits? Don’t bother replying – I don’t give a fuck what you think.
Lmao, those 7 products did NOT make billions in profits.
I don’t give a shit. That’s not how justice works.
It is the literal definition of Justice: if you do crime you get punished.
It’s a warning. The more that know lying will cost you millions the fewer will risk it. The more consumers who know of cheaters the more it will impact the business. Headline grabbing numbers are GOOD.
It’s not even the company’s first fine for similar misbehavior.
If the fine isn’t big enough to act as a deterrent, it’s almost like granting permission to do it again.
bullshit! -history
See also: The free market
Poor them. A whole $3.2 millions? How will they ever recover from this?
Really depends on the value of the products sold. The find should be double or triple that to have any impact.
Personally I avoid buying anything made in China. Too much risk if it’s something I’ll touch all the time. Too much lead and chemicals in their products.
You had me up until “chemicals”.
Literally everything IS chemicals. If you take all the chemicals out of something all you have is nothing. Nothing as in, the hard vacuum of deep space. Even that will have a hydrogen atom here and there. At least call them hazardous chemicals. Please?This, quite literally, sounded like a poem in my head while I was reading it.
You and I have the same pet peeve. o7
Now if we could only get things like I dunno leaking million peoples of private information to the dark web which adds up to billions in lost revenue and scams for millions of Americans taken as seriously… Nah…
I’ve never bought anything specifically because it was made in the USA because US made does not equal good quality. When I used to work retail and people would ask me if something was American made it was because they assumed it was better quality and they were racist. I do find it ridiculous that a company can do this and still be allowed to operate. William Sonoma should be forced out of business for even having the audacity to do this as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve never bought anything specifically because it was made in the USA because US made does not equal good quality.
Not sure about the USA, but I consider it’s more likely the ecological and social impact of the product is better if it was made in my country than in a cheap labor one.
That’s a blunder.
I’m happy to hear the FTC is doing some shit. Seems like they kept quiet for years, but lately they’ve been on fire
