On September 17, the FTC issued a consent order requiring a corporate payments company and its CEO to pay $100 million to settle an administrative action over allegedly hidden fuel card fees. According to the FTC, the company marketed fuel cards to small businesses with promises of savings, fraud protection, and “[n]o fees for set-up, transactions or annual membership,” but instead allegedly charged customers a broad array of unauthorized fees (such as account administration fees, program fees, late fees, high credit risk account fees, and convenience network fees) that totaled hundreds of millions of dollars. The FTC also alleged the company obscured fees by waiting several billing cycles before imposing them and that it assessed late fees against customers who had timely paid their balances or who were prevented from paying on time by the company’s own purported billing and payment-processing practices.

The action stemmed from a 2019 lawsuit in which the district court granted summary judgment to the FTC on all five counts — each alleging violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act — on August 9, 2022. The court subsequently entered a permanent injunction on June 8, 2023, barring the company from billing customers without “express informed consent” or making deceptive claims about its fuel cards. On January 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the liability finding and injunction against the company on all counts, while affirming liability against the CEO on all but one count and vacating the injunction as to him. As part of the settlement, the company and the CEO agreed not to oppose reimposition of the federal court injunction. The $100 million in monetary relief will fund redress for affected business customers.