11th Circuit Ruling Against FTC on LabMD Called Important, Bad for Agency
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruling against the FTC on LabMD was called an important decision and bad for the agency. The commission can't require a company to completely overhaul its data security program but can…
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ban specific acts or practices (see 1712070068), an 11th Circuit panel ruled Wednesday. The FTC sued the now-defunct diagnostic cancer lab in 2013 for unfair data security practices. The ruling said the FTC improperly mandated LabMD’s complete overhaul and charged the district court with managing the overhaul. “This is a scheme Congress could not have envisioned,” the panel said. “We therefore grant LabMD’s petition for review and vacate the commission’s order.” TechFreedom President Berin Szoka said Thursday the court’s decision shows the FTC “has been acting unlawfully for well over a decade” and calls into question the validity of past data security consent decrees. The commission didn’t comment. Wiley Rein called it “an important milestone and inflection point for” new agency leadership: “This case raised issues going to FTC power and practice, but ultimately turned on the remedy imposed by the agency which was found to be so vague as to be unenforceable.” The agency can ask for a full 11th Circuit review en banc or Supreme Court review. Judges Gerald Bard Tjoflat, Charles Wilson and Eduardo Robreno made up the panel and Tjoflat wrote the opinion.