Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Case No.: 10-cv-00367
WBE represented one of the nation’s largest direct marketing cosmetics companies in this unfair competition action against the “lead generation” company ValueClick, Inc. and its subsidiary Webclients. As alleged in the complaint, Cosmetique paid millions of dollars to ValueClick, through an intermediary, for leads to sales for its beauty products. However, because ValueClick’s “leads” were generated through deceptive business practices, for which they were sued by the Federal Trade Commission, the “leads” were not to customers genuinely interested in Cosmetique’s products. As a result, Cosmetique did not realize a benefit for its substantial payments to ValueClick, but instead suffered substantial losses. The case has been settled.