Retail & Consumer Products

Last year, we wrote about a growing trend of local jurisdictions regulating children’s products, primarily toys and apparel. One such jurisdiction, Albany County, NY, enacted a far-reaching ordinance, “Local Law J of 2014,” that prohibited the sale of children’s products containing seven chemicals of “high concern” (see previous blog post here).

Has your business experienced difficulty identifying on the CPSC’s website which product safety regulations are potentially applicable to your products?

The first round goes to the industry: on December 9, 2015, the Central District of California dismissed the complaint in Barber v. Nestle USA, a key bellwether case in a new wave of class action litigation related to California’s Transparency in Supply Chains Act.

The $1.1 trillion 2016 omnibus spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last week includes many legislative provisions, often called policy “riders,” that  will affect a wide array of issues ranging from repealing food labeling laws to allowing children to sled on Capitol Hill.

The 2016 Omnibus Spending Bill recently passed by both houses of Congress ushers in important developments in the food safety, labeling, and nutrition spaces.  Following House and Senate votes December 18, it now goes to President Obama for his signature.

On December 2, 2015, the Grocery Manufacturers Association announced SmartLabel, a pioneering technology initiative that gives manufacturers and retailers an important new channel for disclosing information about their products directly to consumers.

Over recent weeks, national media outlets have reported extensively on multiple claims from consumers that hoverboards—self-balancing scooters growing immensely in popularity, particularly over the holiday period—have caught fire.  Much of the focus of these claims has been related to the overheating of the hoverboards’ lithium ion batteries.

A courtroom battle concerning a manufacturer’s alleged false marketing of allegedly foreign-produced products as “Made in USA” is potentially nearing a resolution. 

We have blogged regularly about the plethora of litigation, largely centered in California, focused on the labeling of food, beverage, cosmetics, and consumer goods. Nationwide, consumers are demanding more information from manufacturers and retailers of these goods, and companies in the relevant industries seem ready, willing, and able to provide that information.

Over the past few months, numerous national media outlets have published stories about the potential health risks of a material commonly used on playground surfaces—crumb rubber.  Crumb rubber is a granule material typically made from recycled scrap tires that is used to provide a soft play surface for playgrounds (and infill for artificial turf fields). 

Passed in 2010, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act has a worthy aim: requiring retailers and manufacturers doing big business in California to disclose what measures, if any, they are taking to ensure their suppliers comply with human rights standards.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”)—at the behest of the CPSC—filed suit in California federal court against two companies and three individuals for importing products that violate the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (“FHSA”) and Consumer Product Safety Act (“CPSA”).

The consumer product safety community is a tight knit one and no one is better known or influential in the community than Marc Schoem.

At the very beginning of this year, we wrote that we expected the CPSC to remain active in bringing enforcement actions against companies for violations of the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA).