[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 99 (Friday, May 22, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 29706-29708]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-12462]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

[File No. 132-3272]


Nice-Pak Products, Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To 
Aid Public Comment

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION: Proposed consent agreement.

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SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this matter settles alleged 
violations of federal law prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or 
practices. The attached Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes both 
the allegations in the draft complaint and the terms of the consent 
order--embodied in the consent agreement--that would settle these 
allegations.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before June 19, 2015.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file a comment at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/nicepakconsent online or on paper, by 
following the instructions in the Request for Comment part of the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below. Write ``Nice-Pak Products--
Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272'' on your comment and file your 
comment online at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/nicepakconsent 
by following the instructions on the Web-based form. If

[[Page 29707]]

you prefer to file your comment on paper, write ``Nice-Pak Products--
Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272'' on your comment and on the 
envelope, and mail your comment to the following address: Federal Trade 
Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Suite 
CC-5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the 
following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, 
Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW., 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex 
D), Washington, DC 20024.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sylvia J. Kundig, FTC Western Region, 
(415) 848-5188, 901 Market Street, Suite 570, San Francisco, CA 94103.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant to Section 6(f) of the Federal 
Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 2.34, 16 CFR 2.34, 
notice is hereby given that the above-captioned consent agreement 
containing consent order to cease and desist, having been filed with 
and accepted, subject to final approval, by the Commission, has been 
placed on the public record for a period of thirty (30) days. The 
following Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes the terms of the 
consent agreement, and the allegations in the complaint. An electronic 
copy of the full text of the consent agreement package can be obtained 
from the FTC Home Page (for May 18, 2015), on the World Wide Web at: 
http://www.ftc.gov/os/actions.shtm.
    You can file a comment online or on paper. For the Commission to 
consider your comment, we must receive it on or before June 19, 2015. 
Write ``Nice-Pak Products--Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272'' on 
your comment. Your comment--including your name and your state--will be 
placed on the public record of this proceeding, including, to the 
extent practicable, on the public Commission Web site, at http://www.ftc.gov/os/publiccomments.shtm. As a matter of discretion, the 
Commission tries to remove individuals' home contact information from 
comments before placing them on the Commission Web site.
    Because your comment will be made public, you are solely 
responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any 
sensitive personal information, like anyone's Social Security number, 
date of birth, driver's license number or other state identification 
number or foreign country equivalent, passport number, financial 
account number, or credit or debit card number. You are also solely 
responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any 
sensitive health information, like medical records or other 
individually identifiable health information. In addition, do not 
include any ``[t]rade secret or any commercial or financial information 
which . . . is privileged or confidential,'' as discussed in Section 
6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 
4.10(a)(2). In particular, do not include competitively sensitive 
information such as costs, sales statistics, inventories, formulas, 
patterns, devices, manufacturing processes, or customer names.
    If you want the Commission to give your comment confidential 
treatment, you must file it in paper form, with a request for 
confidential treatment, and you have to follow the procedure explained 
in FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).\1\ Your comment will be kept 
confidential only if the FTC General Counsel, in his or her sole 
discretion, grants your request in accordance with the law and the 
public interest.
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    \1\ In particular, the written request for confidential 
treatment that accompanies the comment must include the factual and 
legal basis for the request, and must identify the specific portions 
of the comment to be withheld from the public record. See FTC Rule 
4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
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    Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay due to 
heightened security screening. As a result, we encourage you to submit 
your comments online. To make sure that the Commission considers your 
online comment, you must file it at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/nicepakconsent by following the instructions on the web-based form. 
If this Notice appears at http://www.regulations.gov/#!home, you also 
may file a comment through that Web site.
    If you file your comment on paper, write ``Nice-Pak Products--
Consent Agreement; File No. 132-3272 on your comment and on the 
envelope, and mail your comment to the following address: Federal Trade 
Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Suite 
CC-5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the 
following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, 
Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW., 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex 
D), Washington, DC 20024. If possible, submit your paper comment to the 
Commission by courier or overnight service.
    Visit the Commission Web site at http://www.ftc.gov to read this 
Notice and the news release describing it. The FTC Act and other laws 
that the Commission administers permit the collection of public 
comments to consider and use in this proceeding as appropriate. The 
Commission will consider all timely and responsive public comments that 
it receives on or before June 19, 2015. You can find more information, 
including routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, in the 
Commission's privacy policy, at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm.

Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid Public Comment

    The Federal Trade Commission (``FTC'' or ``Commission'') has 
accepted, subject to final approval, an agreement containing consent 
order from Nice-Pak Products, Inc. (``Nice-Pak'').
    The proposed consent order has been placed on the public record for 
thirty (30) days for receipt of comments by interested persons. 
Comments received during this period will become part of the public 
record. After thirty (30) days, the Commission will again review the 
agreement and the comments received, and will decide whether it should 
withdraw from the agreement and take appropriate action or make final 
the agreement's proposed order.
    Nice-Pak is a manufacturer of ``flushable'' moist toilet tissue 
made from non-elemental chlorine bleached wood pulp, bicomponent fibers 
and EP907 repulpable binder. It advertised the flushable moist toilet 
tissue as being safe for sewer and septic systems, and breaking apart 
shortly after flushing. The Commission's complaint, however, alleges 
that Nice-Pak did not have adequate substantiation for the claims, 
because its substantiation did not accurately reflect the real-world 
conditions that the moist toilet tissue encounters after flushing. In 
addition, the complaint alleges that Nice-Pak provided retailers, such 
as Costco, CVS, Target, and BJ's, that sold the Nice-Pak flushable 
moist toilet tissue under their private labels with the inadequate 
substantiation and the retailers then repeated the unsubstantiated 
claims.
    The proposed consent order contains provisions designed to prevent 
Nice-Pak from engaging in similar acts or practices in the future.
    Part I of the order prohibits Nice-Pak from misrepresenting that 
any wipe is safe to flush unless Nice-Pak's substantiation demonstrates 
that the wipe will disperse in a sufficiently short amount of time 
after flushing to avoid clogging or other operational problems in 
household and municipal sewage lines, septic systems and other standard 
wastewater equipment, and that those tests substantially replicate the 
physical conditions of the environment the wipe will be disposed in.

[[Page 29708]]

    Part II of the proposed order prohibits Nice-Pak from making any 
representation about moist toilet tissue unless the representation is 
non-misleading, and, at the time it is made, Nice-Pak possesses and 
relies upon competent and reliable evidence that substantiates the 
representation.
    Part III of the proposed order prohibits Nice-Pak from providing 
the means and instrumentalities to others to make the representations 
that Nice-Pak would be prohibited from making by Parts I and II of the 
proposed order.
    Part IV of the proposed order contains recordkeeping requirements 
for advertisements and substantiation relevant to representations 
covered by Parts I through III of the order.
    Parts V, VII and VIII of the proposed order require Nice-Pak to: 
Deliver a copy of the order to certain personnel having managerial 
responsibilities with respect to the subject matter of the order; 
notify the Commission of changes in corporate structure that might 
affect compliance obligations under the order; and file compliance 
reports with the Commission.
    Part VI of the proposed order requires Nice-Pak to provide notice 
of the order to its private label customers.
    Part IX of the proposed order provides that the order will 
terminate after twenty (20) years, with certain exceptions.
    The purpose of this analysis is to facilitate public comment on the 
proposed order, and it is not intended to constitute an official 
interpretation of the complaint or proposed order, or to modify the 
proposed order's terms in any way.

    By direction of the Commission.
Donald S. Clark,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2015-12462 Filed 5-21-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P