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AMG CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC v. FTC 

Opinion of the Court 

the FTC’s Antitrust Mission 7, Speech at Dechert LLP, NY,
Apr.  20,  2016  (Commission  sought  disgorgement  in  anti-
trust cases four times between 2012 and 2016, which is “as 
many times as the [Commission] pursued such relief in the 
prior twenty years”).  With respect to consumer protection
cases, the Commission adds that “there’s no question that 
the agency brings far more cases in court than it does in the 
administrative process.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 49.  In fiscal year
2019, for example, the Commission filed 49 complaints in
federal  court  and  obtained  81  permanent  injunctions  and
orders,  resulting  in  $723.2  million  in  consumer  redress 
See  FTC,  Fiscal  Year  2021  Con- 
or  disgorgement. 
gressional  Budget  Justification  5 
(Feb.  10,  2020), 
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/fy-2021-
congressional - budget - justification/ fy _ 2021 _ cbj _ final.pdf.
In the same period, the Commission issued only 21 new ad-
ministrative complaints and 21 final administrative orders.
Our task here is not to decide whether this substitution 
of §13(b) for the administrative procedure contained in §5 
and the consumer redress available under §19 is desirable. 
Rather,  it  is  to  answer  a  more  purely  legal  question:  Did 
Congress,  by  enacting  §13(b)’s  words,  “permanent  injunc-
tion,” grant the Commission authority to obtain monetary
relief directly from courts, thereby effectively bypassing the
process set forth in §5 and §19? 

III 
Several considerations, taken together, convince us that
§13(b)’s “permanent injunction” language does not author-
ize the Commission directly to obtain court-ordered mone-
tary relief.  For one thing, the language refers only to in-
junctions.  It  says,  “in  proper  cases  the  Commission  may 
seek, and after proper proof, the court may issue, a perma-
nent injunction.”  15 U. S. C. §53(b) (emphasis added).  An 
“injunction” is not the same as an award of equitable mon-
etary relief.  Compare, e.g., United States v. Oregon State