Consumers and Class Action Notices: An FTC Workshop

Washington, D.C., partner Brian Perryman is speaking at a public workshop of the Federal Trade Commission on “Consumers and Class Action Notices” on October 29, 2019, at 9:00 a.m. in the Constitution Center at 400 7th Street SW in Washington, D.C. The workshop is free and open to the public. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

With the goal of improving class action settlement notices for consumers, the event addresses current practices and research related to class action notices, redress methods, claims rates, check-cashing rates and similar issues. Besides Brian, the workshop includes several panels representing a wide range of perspectives, including consumer groups, defense and plaintiff attorneys, class action administrators and government agencies.

To further the FTC’s understanding of these issues and develop information to help improve settlement outcomes for consumers, FTC staff recently completed a staff report summarizing the findings of two studies involving consumer class actions: the Administrator Study and the Notice Study. In the Administrator Study, FTC staff obtained a sample of more than 140 consumer class action cases from large class-action administrators and analyzed several characteristics of these settlements, such as notice methods and redress or compensation amounts available, and how these characteristics relate to outcomes, including claim-filing and check-cashing rates. In the Notice Study, the staff conducted Internet-based consumer research to explore consumer perceptions of class action notices, including whether consumers understand such notices’ options.