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.
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