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Frivolous litigation is the use of legal processes with apparent disregard for the merit of one's own arguments. It includes presenting an argument with reason to know that it would certainly fail, or acting without a basic level of diligence in researching the relevant law and facts. The fact that a claim is lost does not imply that it was frivolous.
Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its business model, brand, and rights to sell its branded products and services to a franchisee. In return the franchisee pays certain fees and agrees to comply with certain obligations, typically set out in a Franchise Agreement.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) U.S. antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection.
In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. The term also has other meanings in the context of law. Structured settlements provide for future periodic payments, instead of a one time cash payment.
Rambus Incorporated, founded in 1990, is an American technology company that designs, develops and licenses chip interface technologies and architectures that are used in digital electronics products. The company is well known for inventing RDRAM and for its intellectual property-based litigation following the introduction of DDR-SDRAM memory.
A franchise agreement is a legal, binding contract between a franchisor and franchisee. In the United States franchise agreements are enforced at the State level.
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Pub.L. 104–67 (text)(pdf), 109 Stat. 737 ("PSLRA") implemented several substantive changes in the United States, affecting certain cases brought under the federal securities laws, including changes related to pleading, discovery, liability, class representation, and awards fees and expenses.
In re Amway Corp. is a 1979 ruling by the United States Federal Trade Commission concerning the business practices of Amway, a multi-level marketing (MLM) company. The FTC ruled that Amway was not an illegal pyramid scheme according strictly to the statutory definition of a pyramid scheme, but ordered Amway to cease price fixing and cease misrepresenting to its distributors (participants) the average participant's likelihood of financial security and material success.
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A franchise disclosure document (FDD) is a legal document which is presented to prospective buyers of franchises in the pre-sale disclosure process in the United States. It was originally known as the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC), prior to revisions made by the Federal Trade Commission in July 2007. Franchisors were given until July 1, 2008 to comply with the changes.
Fine print, small print, or "mouseprint" is less noticeable print smaller than the more obvious larger print it accompanies that advertises or otherwise describes or partially describes a commercial product or service. The larger print that is used in conjunction with fine print by the merchant often has the effect of deceiving the consumer into believing the offer is more advantageous than it really is. This may satisfy a legal technicality which requires full disclosure of all terms or conditions, but does not specify the manner of disclosure. There is strong evidence that suggests the fine print is not read by the majority of consumers.
An invention promotion firm or invention submission corporation provides services to inventors to help them develop or market their inventions. These firms may offer to evaluate the patentability of inventions, file patent applications and license them to manufacturers, build prototypes, and market inventions. They are distinguished from more conventional consulting firms and law firms offering the same or similar services in that they market their services primarily to amateur inventors through the mass media.
Motley Rice LLC is one of the largest American plaintiffs' litigation firms. Founded in 2003, Motley Rice seeks justice and accountability on behalf of people and institutions harmed by wrongdoing and negligence. The firm is currently involved in litigation seeking to hold accountable those who allegedly financed the September 11, 2001, attacks. Motley Rice is headquartered in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and has offices in eight cities across the United States.
Multi-level marketing (MLM), also called network marketing or pyramid selling, is a controversial marketing strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce selling the company's products or services, while the earnings of the participants are derived from a pyramid-shaped or binary compensation commission system. An MLM strategy may be an illegal pyramid scheme.
'Franchise consulting' traditionally meant the same consultant-to-client relationship as any other industry wherein the consultant charges a 'fee for services'. But, as of the late 1990s the term 'consultant' was adopted by franchise salesmen and brokers that began representing themselves as "free" consultants to prospective franchise buyers. These 'free consultants' provide introduction services for franchise opportunity sellers with whom they have worked out a pay-for-sale agreement. Therefore, they are driven by the desire to connect the 'client' to a particular franchise.
Cramming is a form of fraud in which small charges are added to a bill by a third party without the subscriber's consent, approval, authorization or disclosure. These may be disguised as a tax, some other common fee or a bogus service, and may be several dollars or even just a few cents. The crammer's intent is that the subscriber will overlook and ultimately pay these small charges without them knowing what it's all about.
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The Franchise Rule defines acts or practices that are unfair or deceptive in the franchise industry in the United States. The Franchise Rule is published by the Federal Trade Commission. The Franchise Rule seeks to facilitate informed decisions and to prevent deception in the sale of franchises by requiring franchisors to provide prospective franchisees with essential information prior to the sale. It does not, however, regulate the substance of the terms that control the relationship between franchisors and franchisees. Also, while the Franchise Rule removed the regulation of the sale of franchises from the purview of state law, placing it under the authority of the FTC to regulate interstate commerce, the FTC Franchise Rule does not require franchisors to disclose the unit performance statistics of the franchised system to new buyers of franchises. The FTC Franchise Rule was originally adopted in 1978. This followed a lengthy FTC rulemaking proceeding that began in 1971. A substantial revision of the FTC Franchise Rule was adopted by the FTC in 2007.
The American Association of Franchisees and Dealers (AAFD) acts as a consumer protection organization that exposes the unethical practices that exist in the franchising community, and to educate the public regarding fair franchise rules, and quality franchise opportunities.
FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. 136 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that the FTC could make an antitrust challenge under the rule of reason against a so-called pay-for-delay agreement, also referred to as a reverse payment patent settlement. Such an agreement is one in which a drug patentee pays another company, ordinarily a generic drug manufacturer, to stay out of the market, thus avoiding generic competition and a challenge to patent validity. The FTC sought to establish a rule that such agreements were presumptively illegal, but the Court ruled only that the FTC could bring a case under more general antitrust principles permitting a defendant to assert justifications for its actions under the rule of reason.
References
- ↑ Link to the text of the Franchise Rule contained within the Federal Register
- ↑ Gurnick, David (2003). Franchising Depositions. U.S.: Juris Publishing. p. 405. ISBN 1-57823-102-7.
- ↑ Franchise and Business Opportunities | BCP Business Center Archived October 6, 2013, at the Wayback Machine . Business.ftc.gov. Retrieved on 2010-12-06.
- ↑ FTC Issues Updated Franchise Rule. Ftc.gov. Retrieved on 2010-12-06.
- ↑ FBI — Common Fraud Schemes. Fbi.gov. Retrieved on 2010-12-06.