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AMG CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC v. FTC 

Opinion of the Court 

so  readily  to  circumvent  its  traditional  §5  administrative
proceedings.  See  FitzGerald  1  (arguing  that,  in  the  mid-
1970s, “no one imagined that Section 13(b) of the [FTC] Act 
would become an important part of the Commission’s con-
sumer protection program” (footnote omitted)).

At the same time, to read §13(b) to mean what it says, as
authorizing injunctive but not monetary relief, produces a
coherent enforcement scheme: The Commission may obtain 
monetary relief by first invoking its administrative proce-
dures and then §19’s redress provisions (which include lim-
itations).  And the Commission may use §13(b) to obtain in-
junctive  relief  while  administrative  proceedings  are 
foreseen or in progress, or when it seeks only injunctive re-
lief.  By contrast, the Commission’s broad reading would al-
low it to use §13(b) as a substitute for §5 and §19.  For the 
reasons we have just stated, that could not have been Con-
gress’  intent.  Cf.  Whitman  v.  American  Trucking  Assns., 
Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 468 (2001) (“Congress . . . does not . . . 
hide elephants in mouseholes”). 

IV 
The  Commission  makes  several  arguments  to  the  con-
trary.  First, the Commission points to traditional equitable 
practice  and  to  two  previous  cases  where  we  interpreted
provisions authorizing injunctive relief to authorize equita-
ble monetary relief as well.  See Porter v. Warner Holding 
Co., 328 U. S. 395 (1946); Mitchell v. Robert DeMario Jew-
elry,  Inc.,  361  U. S.  288  (1960).  In  Porter  we  said  that 
“[n]othing is more clearly a part of the subject matter of a 
suit for an injunction than the recovery of that which has 
been illegally acquired and which has given rise to the ne-
cessity for injunctive relief.”  328 U. S., at 399.  In Mitchell 
we said that, “[w]hen Congress entrusts to an equity court 
the  enforcement  of  prohibitions  contained  in  a  regulatory
enactment, it must be taken to have acted cognizant of the
historic power of equity to provide complete relief in light of