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State AG News: Robocalls, False Advertising, Inflated Rent May 29-June 11, 2025

By Toni Michelle Jackson, Joanna Rosen Forster, Tiffany Aguiar & Anna Kufta on June 16, 2025
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Each week, Crowell & Moring’s State Attorneys General team highlights significant actions that State AGs have taken. See our State Attorneys General page for more insights. Below are the updates from May 29-June 11, 2025

Multistate

  • A bipartisan coalition of 42 attorneys general sent a letter to the House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Banking Committee regarding the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act of 2025 (H.R. 2808 and S. 1467). The letter urges Congress to pass this legislation to end the abusive use of mortgage credit triggers and seeks to preserve the use of mortgage credit to narrowly defined, consumer consented circumstances.
  • A coalition of 8 attorneys general announced a contempt order was filed against John Spiller, owner of Rising Eagle Capital Group, JSquared Telecom, and Rising Eagle Capital Group-Cayman, which offered robocall dialer and VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol ) services to telemarketers. Spiller allegedly helped facilitate large volumes of robocalls, including many targeting numbers on the Do Not Call Registry, through his telemarketing service companies. Spiller is required to pay $600,000 in attorney’s fees and litigation costs for violating a 2023 court order that barred him from placing or facilitating robocalls.

Arizona

  • Arizona Attorney General Mayes announced a settlement with Family Dollar Stores, LLC, the discount retailer, resolving allegations that it inaccurately advertised prices for items at their store. According to the OAG’s investigation, Family Dollar had repeatedly failed UPC Scanning Accuracy inspections conducted by the Weights and Measures Services Division of the Arizona Department of Agriculture in stores throughout the state. Meaning, the prices advertised on store shelves were not always the prices that customers paid at the register. Family Dollar Stores is required to pay $300,000 in civil penalties and attorneys’ fees and to implement changes to improve its pricing accuracy.

California

  • California Attorney General Bonta announced a $275,000 settlement with Pacific Magazine Billing resolving allegations that the company was engaged in deceptive practices and violated California’s False Advertising and Unfair Competition Laws. The settlement resolves all allegations from the 2025 lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of the State of California County of San Diego regarding the deceptive practice of disguising solicitation mailers for magazine subscriptions as bills.   
  • Attorney General Bonta issued a statement after a Northern District federal judge in State of California v. Donald J. Trump granted California’s request for dismissal to allow the state to appeal its case challenging the Trump Administration’s allegedly illegal tariffs. According to the complaint filed by the state, President Trump doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act without the consent of Congress. A copy of the judge’s order can be found here. 

Georgia

  • Georgia Attorney General Carr announced the indictment of Christie Edwards on charges of racketeering and theft by taking. The indictment alleged that Ms. Edwards conducted a series of fraudulent ATM withdraws, point of sale transactions, checks, and credit card payments against elderly clients while employed as a bookkeeper at an accounting firm. The indictment alleges that Ms. Edwards’ conduct resulted in more than $380,000 of stolen funds.

Nevada

  • Nevada Attorney General Ford announced the passage of Assembly Bill 44, which prohibits unfair and deceptive price-fixing of the prices for essential goods and services, such as food, clothes, footwear, gasoline, medical products, housing, telecommunication services, internet access, and ground transportation. However, Bill 44 does not apply to fees and rates charged within industries regulated by federal, state, or local governmental agencies. Bill 44 does not prohibit raising prices of essential goods or services due to normal market trends. The Bill aims to protect Nevadans from “predatory practices”.

New Jersey

  • New Jersey Attorney General Platkin announced proposed rules aimed at protecting consumers from the unauthorized use and sale of their personal data by the operators that collect it during certain business transactions. The proposed rules would facilitate several rights for consumers in the state including, opting out of a business selling or using personal data targeted at advertising and providing consumers with more control over personal data obtained by a business. It also provides a framework for a universal opt-out mechanism. The 60-day public comment period, during which stakeholders have an opportunity to submit written comments on the proposed rules, which ends August 1, 2025.

Vermont

  • Vermont Attorney General Clark resolved allegations against Unified Parking Partners (UPP) Global, LLC, a private parking operator, for misleading parking notices that implied that UPP Global was a governmental entity. The $150,000 settlement resolves allegations of violations of the Consumer Protection Act.  

Washington D.C.

  • Washington D.C. Attorney General Schwab announced a settlement with William C. Smith & Co., Inc., resolving allegations that it conspired with other District landlords, using pricing software from RealPage, Inc., to inflate rents at over 50,000 apartment units across the District. According to the settlement, W.C. Smith will pay over $1,000,000 in civil penalties and will be required to reform its business practices to avoid certain rent-setting practices and to refrain from encouraging others to use revenue management software to accept recommended rent prices.
  • Attorney General Schwab announced settlements with Equinox SC D.C., Inc., the luxury fitness studio, and Capital Healthcare, LLC (AllCare), provider of primary and urgent healthcare clinics, resolving allegations that they separately required employees to sign unlawful noncompete agreements. According to the Equinox settlement agreement, the company will pay in excess of $117,000 to impacted workers and the District, and will be required to stop using noncompete agreements for current or future employees in the District. The AllCare settlement requires the company to pay $18,000 and to stop the use of noncompete clauses and ensure that nondisclosure agreements do not infringe employees’ rights.

Photo of Toni Michelle Jackson Toni Michelle Jackson

Toni Michelle Jackson is a first-chair litigator whose extensive jury and bench trial experience is informed by over 15 years of government service. Clients rely on her to marshal the evidence presented during discovery and either win their case at summary judgment or…

Toni Michelle Jackson is a first-chair litigator whose extensive jury and bench trial experience is informed by over 15 years of government service. Clients rely on her to marshal the evidence presented during discovery and either win their case at summary judgment or try the case and win at trial. In particular, she leads class/collective actions, multidistrict litigations, and other complex litigation in federal and state courts. As chair of the State Attorneys General Practice Group, Toni provides advice and counsel to clients with State Attorneys General matters, including investigations, inquiries and litigation.

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Photo of Joanna Rosen Forster Joanna Rosen Forster

Joanna Forster’s multifaceted background positions her to effectively manage conflicts across the legal spectrum and across the globe. In her prior roles as general counsel (representing both plaintiffs and defendants) and as government prosecutor/enforcer, Joanna handled nearly every type of matter, ranging from

…

Joanna Forster’s multifaceted background positions her to effectively manage conflicts across the legal spectrum and across the globe. In her prior roles as general counsel (representing both plaintiffs and defendants) and as government prosecutor/enforcer, Joanna handled nearly every type of matter, ranging from complex commercial and white collar matters in areas such as employment, intellectual property, securities and antitrust law, to internal investigations and corporate and M&A transactions. She views her role as both a conflict manager, dispensing advice to avoid adversarial action, and as a tech and business litigator, resolving disputes with her client’s business goals in mind.

Having served as the general counsel and compliance officer of a publicly traded ecommerce platform operating in over 60 countries, Joanna has an appreciation of strategic dispute resolution, investigations, and compliance from a general counsel’s perspective. By understanding how business leaders combine the input of in-house and outside counsel to make decisions, Joanna is able to provide her clients with decisive and efficient legal guidance.

Her practice includes litigating domestic and cross-border complex commercial disputes and advising technology and ecommerce companies on matters related to internet platforms, product launches, market campaigns, and new vertical lines of business, all while advising on foreign and domestic laws that regulate online content, physical products, and the companies that bring them to market. Drawing on her experience as the General Counsel of an online e-commerce marketplace, Joanna also regularly advises and counsels clients on California’s Proposition 65, from prevention and compliance to remediation. Joanna is well-versed in key regulations that impact ecommerce companies, including the EU’s Digital Services Act, the U.S. INFORM Act, and the proposed SHOP SAFE Act, as well as laws and regulations that govern online speech such as the Communications Decency Act, Section 230.

Prior to going in-house, Joanna was the deputy attorney general, Corporate Fraud Section of the California Department of Justice. In this capacity, she led large, complex civil matters alleging violations of California’s False Claims Act, Securities Law, Section 17200, Cartwright Act, and other deceptive business practices. She also maintained her own investigations and litigation docket.

Before joining the California Department of Justice, Joanna spent nearly a decade in private practice, where she focused on civil and criminal antitrust and commercial litigation. She also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Consuelo B. Marshall in the U.S. District Court for the Central District Court of California.

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Photo of Tiffany Aguiar Tiffany Aguiar
Read more about Tiffany AguiarEmail
  • Posted in:
    Government and Public Policy
  • Blog:
    State AG Blog
  • Organization:
    Crowell & Moring LLP
  • Article: View Original Source

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