FTC’s Andrew M. Smith
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
Former Covington & Burling lawyer Andrew M. Smith’s confirmation as Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection head last May was a classic example of appointing a fox to guard the henhouse.
Allied Progress executive director Karl Frisch slammed him for “defend(ing) the worst of the worst when he could have been standing up for consumers.”
His clients included the consumer credit reporting firm Equifax, involved in one of the worst ever personal data breaches.
“Smith fought the FTC when it obtained a ($1.3 billion) judgement against…notorious predatory lender (AMG Services) for deceiving consumers. That lender was sentenced to 16 years in prison, and Smith is now in charge of protecting consumers at the FTC. It’s beyond swampy,” said Frisch.
His FTC appointment amounts to “giv(ing) the fox keys to the henhouse and ask(ing) him to protect the hens. They know he won’t and they don’t care,” Frisch added.
He represented other payday lender bandits. Last January, in House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit testimony, he urged Congress to allow unrestricted (predatory) payday lending.
After Equifax’s massive data breach, he tried convincing Senate members to permit regulatory-free industry self-policing.
He argued for Equifax and other credit bureaus to be allowed to ask customers to waive their rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
He claimed the industry is subject to too many class action lawsuits, saying they’re unfair, supporting the right of Equifax and other credit bureaus to operate anyway they please.
He represented Uber Technologies when the company was charged with reporting false earnings and financing claims.
In response to his appointment, Americans for Financial Reform payday campaign manager Jose Alcoff issued a statement, saying:
“The least likely candidate to run the FTC’s consumer protection unit ought to be the former lawyer for a notorious payday lender that the FTC itself pursued for a billion-dollar settlement and who is now in prison on a racketeering conviction.”
“Another unlikely candidate would be an attorney for Equifax, the credit bureau that let hackers get away with the personal financial data of millions of Americans.”
“Yet the FTC has found a lawyer, Andrew Smith, who worked for both payday lenders and Equifax. The FTC needs someone with a record of consumer protection, not yet another industry lawyer” - representing corporate crooks at the expense of real consumer protection.
Smith also represented notorious consumer rights’ foes Facebook (over failing to secure user privacy) Amazon (infamous for exploiting workers), JP Morgan and other financial predators, tech firms, and drug industry bandits, among other corporate predators.
He’s an obvious walking, talking conflict of interest many times over. In response to consumer watchdog Public Citizen’s FOIA’s request for all documents related to his financial disclosure and potential conflicts of interest, around 500 pages of largely worthless material was supplied.
Almost all of it was redacted - clear evidence of a figure unfit for any public position - disgracefully anti-consumer, pro-predatory practices, self-serving.
As FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection head, he’ll represent corporate crooks at the expense of ordinary people they scam, exploit, and otherwise abuse.
Republicans and undemocratic Dem regimes are notorious for appointing industry officials to head virtually all agencies - serving business and industry, ignoring their predatory practices.
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