In a closely watched case where the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) pursued Wyndham Worldwide Corporation for several data breaches that led to millions of dollars in fraudulent charges on customers’ payment cards, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Monday agreed with the Commission’s broad interpretation of its “unfairness” authority (opinion here). The ruling ratifies the FTC’s authority in the domain of data security, and will allow the FTC to continue to seek settlements from companies that suffer data breaches when they fail to take adequate precautions to protect sensitive consumer data. More details can be found in the alert that we sent to clients on the ruling, available here.
