People of the State of California v. Overstock.com, Inc.

Summary

In this e-commerce commercial law proceeding, Plaintiff ‘People of the state of California’ alleged the e-commerce company overstock.com of making untrue and misleading comparative advertisements claims related to the products the website sells. The plaintiff counsels argued that the company advertised reference prices (ARP’s) in different forms and asked its staff to choose the highest price they could find of any product as ARP and used it in advertisement. Moreover, the counsels also argued that the company claimed that it sold products which were similar to products being sold by other retailers while in actuality the products it sold were not to be found elsewhere.
The Plaintiff was represented by attorneys Matt Beltamo, Tina Nunes Ober, Catherine Borsetto, Kelly Walker, Matthew Cheever, Andres Perez and James Burlison. The defendant in this case, Overstock.com Inc was represented by attorneys Robert Feldman, John Pierce and Dane Reinstedt.

Outcome

The court denied the motions for judgement filed on 09/16/2013. It also decided that Overstock was in violations of the Business and Professions Code. Overstock was ordered to pay civil penalties in the amount of $6,828,000. There were stipulations put on the reference price shown on Overstock.com.