Other LanguagesAttorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that, as a result of his lawsuit, Seattle-based ticketing company Brown Paper Tickets must fully refund all consumers who purchased tickets to canceled events, and pay all money it owes to organizers of past events. An estimated 45,000 event organizers and ticket purchasers nationwide, and internationally, will receive a total of approximately $9 million from today’s resolution. The company is also required to pay the Attorney General’s Office $70,000 for attorney’s costs and fees.
SEATTLE — A King County Superior Court judge ruled that Navient, the country’s largest student loan servicer, violated the Consumer Protection Act by engaging in unfair and deceptive conduct related to Washingtonians’ student loans. This is the first time a judge has ruled that Navient broke a consumer protection law in a student loan servicing lawsuit filed by a state’s Attorney General or federal consumer protection agency. Attorney General Bob Ferguson has been litigating this case since January 2017, seeking accountability for Navient’s conduct, legally enforceable terms to prevent future unlawful conduct and financial restitution for Washingtonians harmed by the unlawful conduct.
SEATTLE — As a result of a lawsuit brought by Attorney General Bob Ferguson, 39 other attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), two national companies that made more than 1.7 million robocalls for sham charities into Washington state will pay $495,000 to help fund legitimate charities. One company has since gone out of business and today’s lawsuit requires another one to dissolve.
OLYMPIA — The Washington state Senate today passed Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s bill to prohibit price gouging in Washington during an emergency by a 29-20 vote. The bill now heads to the state House of Representatives for consideration.
OLYMPIA — On Monday afternoon, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan 46-2 vote, state senators passed a bill Attorney General Bob Ferguson requested to create a database of police use-of-force incidents so the public, policymakers, researchers and law enforcement can access the data. Currently in Washington state, there is no central repository for use-of-force data.
Today Attorney General Bob Ferguson released the I-940 Independent Investigation Inquiry Report. Ferguson’s inquiry into investigations reviewing police use of deadly force in the first half of 2020 found that the majority of investigating teams complied with most of the state’s new independent investigation requirements. However, some investigations failed to include at least two non-law enforcement community representatives and comply with other key requirements.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a campaign finance lawsuit today against Google for unlawfully failing to maintain key information regarding state political ads that it sold, and failing to provide that information to individuals who requested it.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced a judge ruled that StarKist, a canned tuna manufacturer, engaged in a price-fixing scheme from November 2011 through December 2013. In a prior and unrelated federal case against StarKist, a federal judge sentenced the company to pay a $100 million criminal fine — the maximum allowed by law — for its role in a nationwide conspiracy to manipulate the price of canned tuna to benefit the company and its executives.
SEATTLE — A federal court of appeals ruled that the Trump Administration violated the law when it attempted to override state regulations governing the number of crewmembers needed to safely operate a train. Attorney General Bob Ferguson, along with two other states and national workers’ unions, brought the challenge in 2019 — when the Trump Administration published its deregulatory rule without any notice, and in the wake of a catastrophic and deadly derailment involving a crude-oil train staffed by only one crewmember.
OLYMPIA — The Attorney General’s Office is continuing its review of the Manuel Ellis case. While we are limited in what we can say about that review, we wanted to provide a short update of our work, and the anticipated timing of our decision.