Opinion ID: 201623
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence of material effect

Text: 25 A regulation may not be sustained if it provides only ineffective or remote support for the government's purpose. Central Hudson, 447 U.S. at 564, 100 S.Ct. 2343. Thus, even if there were a documented enforcement problem with regard to nonresident advertisers, DACO would still have to demonstrate that Article 24 has a material effect thereon. 26 Aside from Article 24, the Regulation is facially applicable to both resident and nonresident advertisers: it is aimed at protecting Puerto Rico consumers from false advertisements and illicit merchandising practices regardless of who engages in such actions or where they originate. Nevertheless, it is mostly unenforced against a large segment of the nonresident advertising trade, and the resident intermediaries therefor. DACO was able to produce records of only seven entities having obtained bonds in compliance with Article 24, see Defendant's Answers to Plaintiff's First Set of Interrogatories, exhibits 1-7, and it has not alleged that any additional, unrecorded bonds exist. Countless other nonresident advertisers reach Puerto Rico residents every day, without having posted a bond, through media ranging from newspapers to satellite television to direct mail. DACO, however, could identify records of only three fines having been imposed for violations of Article 24, two of which were against El Día. 8 See Defendant's Answers to Plaintiff's Supplementary Set of Interrogatories at 2. 27 There is no evidence that DACO has attempted to enforce the Regulation, including the provisions of Article 24, against the vast majority of newspapers, magazines, television broadcasts, internet announcements, satellite communications, and other varieties of information media with access to consumers in Puerto Rico. From all of these sources, the Puerto Rican consumer is subjected to, and in many cases is the intended target of, commercial messages directly from nonresident advertisers. Many of these messages are broadcast within Puerto Rico via nonresident intermediaries, 9 to whom Article 24(B)'s resident intermediary requirements do not apply and against whom Article 24(D)'s prohibition on broadcasting has not been enforced. Meanwhile, DACO issued well over three hundred fines for violating the Regulation to resident advertisers in a single four-month period of 2003. 28 Thus, Article 24 imposes no restraint on the resident advertisers who are the principal violators of the Regulation, nor does it improve DACO's apparently limited ability to enforce the fines levied against resident violators. Neither has Article 24 restrained nonresident intermediaries, through which myriad advertisements reach Puerto Rico residents every day. Finally, the bulk of incoming advertising traffic remains de facto unsupervised due to DACO's failure to enforce compliance with Article 24's bond requirement. Article 24, therefore, has no material effect on DACO's ability to enforce the other provisions of the Regulation.