$40 Million in Contempt Sanctions for False Advertising of Weight Loss Supplements in Violation of Injunction Affirmed

The 11th Circuit upheld a district court’s granting of $40 million in contempt sanctions against Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals and other co-defendants for making unsubstantiated marketing statements on four weight loss supplements in violation of an injunction obtained by the Federal Trade Commission. The $40 million figure represents the amount of gross revenue from the four products.

“The ink had hardly dried on filings from the first injunction case when the defendants started a new marketing campaign in 2009. This time, they touted the fat- and weight-loss benefits of four products—a reformulated version of Lipodrene, Fastin, Benzedrine, and Stimerex-ES. For example, advertisements for Lipodrene warned users not to consume the product unless ‘fat loss and weight loss are your intended result’; advertisements for Fastin boasted that it was an ‘Extreme Fat Burner’; those for Benzedrine claimed that it would ‘annihilate . . . fat’; and advertisements for Stimerex-ES told users that this was a product ‘for those who want their fat-burner to light them up all day as their pounds melt away.'”

The full opinion is available here.