[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 99 (Friday, May 22, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 29706-29708]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-12462]
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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
[File No. 132-3272]
Nice-Pak Products, Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To
Aid Public Comment
AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.
ACTION: Proposed consent agreement.
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SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this matter settles alleged
violations of federal law prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or
practices. The attached Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes both
the allegations in the draft complaint and the terms of the consent
order--embodied in the consent agreement--that would settle these
allegations.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before June 19, 2015.
ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file a comment at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/nicepakconsent online or on paper, by
following the instructions in the Request for Comment part of the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below. Write ``Nice-Pak Products--
Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272'' on your comment and file your
comment online at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/nicepakconsent
by following the instructions on the Web-based form. If
[[Page 29707]]
you prefer to file your comment on paper, write ``Nice-Pak Products--
Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272'' on your comment and on the
envelope, and mail your comment to the following address: Federal Trade
Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Suite
CC-5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the
following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary,
Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW., 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex
D), Washington, DC 20024.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sylvia J. Kundig, FTC Western Region,
(415) 848-5188, 901 Market Street, Suite 570, San Francisco, CA 94103.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant to Section 6(f) of the Federal
Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 2.34, 16 CFR 2.34,
notice is hereby given that the above-captioned consent agreement
containing consent order to cease and desist, having been filed with
and accepted, subject to final approval, by the Commission, has been
placed on the public record for a period of thirty (30) days. The
following Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes the terms of the
consent agreement, and the allegations in the complaint. An electronic
copy of the full text of the consent agreement package can be obtained
from the FTC Home Page (for May 18, 2015), on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/actions.shtm.
You can file a comment online or on paper. For the Commission to
consider your comment, we must receive it on or before June 19, 2015.
Write ``Nice-Pak Products--Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272'' on
your comment. Your comment--including your name and your state--will be
placed on the public record of this proceeding, including, to the
extent practicable, on the public Commission Web site, at http://www.ftc.gov/os/publiccomments.shtm. As a matter of discretion, the
Commission tries to remove individuals' home contact information from
comments before placing them on the Commission Web site.
Because your comment will be made public, you are solely
responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any
sensitive personal information, like anyone's Social Security number,
date of birth, driver's license number or other state identification
number or foreign country equivalent, passport number, financial
account number, or credit or debit card number. You are also solely
responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any
sensitive health information, like medical records or other
individually identifiable health information. In addition, do not
include any ``[t]rade secret or any commercial or financial information
which . . . is privileged or confidential,'' as discussed in Section
6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR
4.10(a)(2). In particular, do not include competitively sensitive
information such as costs, sales statistics, inventories, formulas,
patterns, devices, manufacturing processes, or customer names.
If you want the Commission to give your comment confidential
treatment, you must file it in paper form, with a request for
confidential treatment, and you have to follow the procedure explained
in FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).\1\ Your comment will be kept
confidential only if the FTC General Counsel, in his or her sole
discretion, grants your request in accordance with the law and the
public interest.
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\1\ In particular, the written request for confidential
treatment that accompanies the comment must include the factual and
legal basis for the request, and must identify the specific portions
of the comment to be withheld from the public record. See FTC Rule
4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
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Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay due to
heightened security screening. As a result, we encourage you to submit
your comments online. To make sure that the Commission considers your
online comment, you must file it at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/nicepakconsent by following the instructions on the web-based form.
If this Notice appears at http://www.regulations.gov/#!home, you also
may file a comment through that Web site.
If you file your comment on paper, write ``Nice-Pak Products--
Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272 on your comment and on the
envelope, and mail your comment to the following address: Federal Trade
Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Suite
CC-5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the
following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary,
Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW., 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex
D), Washington, DC 20024. If possible, submit your paper comment to the
Commission by courier or overnight service.
Visit the Commission Web site at http://www.ftc.gov to read this
Notice and the news release describing it. The FTC Act and other laws
that the Commission administers permit the collection of public
comments to consider and use in this proceeding as appropriate. The
Commission will consider all timely and responsive public comments that
it receives on or before June 19, 2015. You can find more information,
including routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, in the
Commission's privacy policy, at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm.
Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid Public Comment
The Federal Trade Commission (``FTC'' or ``Commission'') has
accepted, subject to final approval, an agreement containing consent
order from Nice-Pak Products, Inc. (``Nice-Pak'').
The proposed consent order has been placed on the public record for
thirty (30) days for receipt of comments by interested persons.
Comments received during this period will become part of the public
record. After thirty (30) days, the Commission will again review the
agreement and the comments received, and will decide whether it should
withdraw from the agreement and take appropriate action or make final
the agreement's proposed order.
Nice-Pak is a manufacturer of ``flushable'' moist toilet tissue
made from non-elemental chlorine bleached wood pulp, bicomponent fibers
and EP907 repulpable binder. It advertised the flushable moist toilet
tissue as being safe for sewer and septic systems, and breaking apart
shortly after flushing. The Commission's complaint, however, alleges
that Nice-Pak did not have adequate substantiation for the claims,
because its substantiation did not accurately reflect the real-world
conditions that the moist toilet tissue encounters after flushing. In
addition, the complaint alleges that Nice-Pak provided retailers, such
as Costco, CVS, Target, and BJ's, that sold the Nice-Pak flushable
moist toilet tissue under their private labels with the inadequate
substantiation and the retailers then repeated the unsubstantiated
claims.
The proposed consent order contains provisions designed to prevent
Nice-Pak from engaging in similar acts or practices in the future.
Part I of the order prohibits Nice-Pak from misrepresenting that
any wipe is safe to flush unless Nice-Pak's substantiation demonstrates
that the wipe will disperse in a sufficiently short amount of time
after flushing to avoid clogging or other operational problems in
household and municipal sewage lines, septic systems and other standard
wastewater equipment, and that those tests substantially replicate the
physical conditions of the environment the wipe will be disposed in.
[[Page 29708]]
Part II of the proposed order prohibits Nice-Pak from making any
representation about moist toilet tissue unless the representation is
non-misleading, and, at the time it is made, Nice-Pak possesses and
relies upon competent and reliable evidence that substantiates the
representation.
Part III of the proposed order prohibits Nice-Pak from providing
the means and instrumentalities to others to make the representations
that Nice-Pak would be prohibited from making by Parts I and II of the
proposed order.
Part IV of the proposed order contains recordkeeping requirements
for advertisements and substantiation relevant to representations
covered by Parts I through III of the order.
Parts V, VII and VIII of the proposed order require Nice-Pak to:
Deliver a copy of the order to certain personnel having managerial
responsibilities with respect to the subject matter of the order;
notify the Commission of changes in corporate structure that might
affect compliance obligations under the order; and file compliance
reports with the Commission.
Part VI of the proposed order requires Nice-Pak to provide notice
of the order to its private label customers.
Part IX of the proposed order provides that the order will
terminate after twenty (20) years, with certain exceptions.
The purpose of this analysis is to facilitate public comment on the
proposed order, and it is not intended to constitute an official
interpretation of the complaint or proposed order, or to modify the
proposed order's terms in any way.
By direction of the Commission.
Donald S. Clark,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2015-12462 Filed 5-21-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P