Free-market think tanks urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to curtail the Federal Trade Commission’s traditional reliance on monetary sanctions as a weapon against bad marketplace behavior, including consumer fraud and anti-competitive conduct.

Justices will soon hear oral arguments in two paired cases from the Seventh and Ninth Circuits in order to tackle a divide over whether the Federal Trade Commission Act allows disgorgement of ill-gotten gains as one arrow in the agency’s quiver.

Published in Law360