State AG News: Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Practices (October 1-7, 2026)

Each week, Crowell & Moring’s State Attorneys General team highlights significant actions that State AGs have taken. See our State Attorneys General page for more insights. Below are the updates from October 1-7, 2026:

Multistate

• A coalition of 21 state attorneys general and additional local governmental entities sued the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”), challenging the agency’s final rule reducing corporate average fuel economy (“CAFE”) standards for new vehicles. Under the final rule, vehicle manufacturers are required to achieve an average fuel efficiency of 34.9 miles per gallon by 2031, a reduction from the previously established goal of over 50 miles per gallon. The coalition argues that CAFE standards have historically lowered costs for American consumers by driving improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency and have reduced gas prices.

Texas

• Attorney General Paxton secured a $7.5 million settlement with Tris Pharmaceuticals (“Tris”), a pharmaceutical company, and its CEO, Ketan Mehta. The settlement agreement resolves claims that Tris misrepresented the efficacy of its attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (“ADHD”) drug marketed for children, in violation of the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act. Tris allegedly directed its sales representatives to make misleading claims to physicians, asserting that the drug acted quicker than competing products and offered other unsubstantiated benefits to children. The judgment requires Tris to pay $7.5 million to the State of Texas.

Iowa

• Attorney General Bird sued ADI Global Distribution Inc. (“ADI”), a distributor of video surveillance products, for alleged violations of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. The petition alleges that ADI sold security cameras to consumers that were manufactured by two China-based entities identified by the Federal Communications Commission to pose a national security risk, while concealing the true origin of the products and the manufacturers’ affiliations. The petition further alleges that ADI, at times, altered product labels to obscure the cameras’ origins, and that none of the accompanying documentation informed consumers of the associated data-security vulnerabilities or of their presence on U.S. government lists. The petition seeks monetary penalties of up to $40,000 per violation, and injunctive relief.

Florida

• Attorney General Uthmeier filed a motion for a temporary injunction against Meta Platforms, Inc. and Instagram, LLC (“Meta”) in the Sixth Circuit, for alleged violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The motion argues that Meta deliberately designed addictive features to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities of users under the age of 18. The motion seeks to require Meta to: cease making deceptive statements and omissions about its platforms; implement age-verification measures and remove all Florida users under the age of 14, or, if those measures cannot be implemented within 30 days, cease providing users under the age of 18 access to the platforms in Florida entirely; and modify its platforms to reduce addictive and harmful use by teen users.