Over the past six months, the New York Attorney General Letitia James has directed her efforts to certain issues, and there is an observable pattern that she is focusing on consumer protection, privacy rights and monopolistic practices as it relates to corporations.
For example, the Attorney General has pursued litigation against Nissan, Capital One Financial Corporations and Equinox Group, LLC. She secured $3.2 million from Nissan dealerships for allegedly overcharging consumers. The eight dealerships purportedly added junk fees or falsified the price for customers who wanted to purchase their vehicle after the lease was up. Those dealerships will be required to pay restitution to over 1,700 customers.
Additionally, the Attorney General sued Capital One for alleged bait-and-switch tactics. Capital One allegedly kept interest rates artificially low in one account while subsequently marketing a similarly named alternative savings account which paid higher interest rates. She alleged Capital One intentionally mislead its customers in one account about the existence of the other available account to mislead and to avoid paying customers millions in interest rates.
Also, just last month she announced a settlement with Equinox Group, LLC, which includes Equinox and Soul Cycle, for promoting hard to cancel memberships. The Attorney General alleged consumers agreed to terms which were not clearly disclosed by the company. As a result of the litigation, Equinox agreed to pay $600,000 in penalties.
Attorney General James has also focused on privacy rights. She pursued litigation against National General and Allstate Insurance, and Root, an auto insurance company, over alleged data breaches and failure to protect personal information. James secured $975,000 in penalties from Root over a data breach. Specifically, Root failed to perform adequate risk assessments on its public-facing web applications, resulting in a data breach that impacted approximately 45,000 consumers.
In March, James also filed a lawsuit against several insurance companies doing business as National General and Allstate for an alleged failure to protect consumers from cyberattacks resulting in data breaches.
Finally, Attorney General James is pursuing litigation against companies in the transportation and entertainment industries. She sued Intermountain Management, a ski resort, over alleged monopolistic practices resulting from its purchase and closure of another ski resort. The anticompetitive practices purportedly drove up prices. The court found the owner illegally shifted competition and illegally created a monopoly, violating New York’s antitrust law.
Separately the Attorney General secured $2.5 million against Big Bus Tours Limited and Twin America, LLC for its illegal agreement to limit competition. She alleges Twin America agreed to stop operating in exchange for a commission for reselling Big Bus tickets.
These actions reveal a pattern of objectives businesses should be aware of and act accordingly. Seek legal counsel if your business needs advice on matters of consumer protection, privacy rights and monopolistic practices.
Summer associate Kelly Maney contributed to this report.
