This article discusses the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court oral argument in POM Wonderful v. Coca-Cola. “The dispute between the beverage giants spotlights a long-running tension between the FDA’s technical rules on how a product should be labeled and the Lanham Act, a federal false advertising law…” Finnegan partner Douglas A. Rettew provided insight. “What’s going to be huge here is whether the court finds that these two federal statutes are irreconcilably in conflict, and if they are, whether the Lanham Act should yield to FDA rules,” said Rettew. “But the Lanham Act false ad law says a label can be false even if it’s true but will deceive in context. So POM can argue that FDA standards do not provide the full range of protections that are in the public interest.”
