Washington, D.C. — Yesterday, in a 3-2 vote, the Federal Trade Commission filed a major lawsuit against Walmart, one of the largest multinational retail corporations, for knowingly facilitating fraud of its customers. As the suit details, Walmart not only turned a blind eye to scammers using its money transfer service to steal more than $197,316,611 — with over $1.3 billion in money transfers also possibly connected to fraud — from working people, it also pocketed millions of dollars in fees through the process.

The Walmart suit is yet another example of the FTC’s work to fulfill Chair Lina Khan’s pro-consumer, pro-competition vision for the agency — one that prioritizes rigorous scrutiny of economic actors that have the greatest impact on the lives of everyday Americans. This latest suit follows other fearless consumer and small business-first actions, including cracking down on corrupt pharmacy benefit managers that abuse millions of patients and pharmacists, challenging problematic mergers like the attempted vertical consolidation of defense contracting giants Lockheed Martin and Aerojet, and engaging in vigorous litigation against dangerous monopoly powers like Facebook.

“This is exactly what the FTC was designed to do,“ said Sarah Miller, Executive Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “The Walmart suit emphasizes an already apparent fact: the FTC won’t back down from fights with powerful corporate actors that are used to getting their way in Washington when they blatantly cheat consumers, abuse workers, and bully small businesses. Although it’s unfortunate to see that the FTC’s Republican commissioners seem content to let Walmart get away with fraud, we commend the FTC’s focus on holding the powerful to account and encourage the entire administration to embrace it.”

To learn more about the FTC’s accomplishments to date under Chair Khan’s leadership, read “A New Era: A Stronger FTC to Defend Working Families and Honest Businesses.”

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.