NEW YORK, NY — The American Economic Liberties Project applauds the Power Act, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first major piece of legislation, which would codify a Private Right of Action and allow New Yorkers, and non-profits including tenants unions, to take companies to court for unfair and abusive practices. Sponsored by Councilmember Harvey Epstein and championed by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Sam Levine, the bill is expected to be introduced in the City Council Thursday. 

A Private Right of Action is one of Economic Liberties’ key tenets when evaluating legislation. In response to this news, Economic Liberties issued the following statements: 

“No enforcement agency — not a city department, not a state AG, not the federal government — has the resources to police every corporation that breaks the law. That’s not a flaw in the system, it’s how corporate lobbyists want it to work. Without a private right of action, justice depends on whether an overstretched agency happens to take up your case,” said Nidhi Hegde, Executive Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “In cities and states across the country these corporate stooges work tirelessly to strip the private right of action out of bill after bill. The Mamdani administration and Sam Levine’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection are rejecting this status quo and taking the power back to the people. Allowing citizens to take a company to court themselves is a check on power that no lobbyist or budget cut can take away. It puts every bad-acting corporation on notice. Companies have to follow the law all the time, not just when they think an enforcer happens to be paying attention. We all are watching.”

“The Mayor, Commissioner Levine, and the bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Epstein, are showing they understand how critical private enforcement is to holding corporations accountable,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “The Power Act gives the people harmed by corporate lawbreaking the ability to enforce the law themselves, rather than leaving accountability to the interests and whims of whoever holds office and whatever budget they have.”

BACKGROUND: 

Under current New York law, individuals can sue companies for deceptive business practices, but not unfair or abusive ones. That power rests with the state attorney general alone. The Power Act closes that gap at the city level. It covers practices that are likely to harm consumers in ways they cannot reasonably avoid, and those that exploit a consumer’s inability to understand the terms of a product or service. The bill also extends the right to sue to nonprofits, including tenant unions, so tenants facing abusive landlords can act together and organizations can work around the forced arbitration clauses consumers often sign unknowingly. 

The Power Act stands out against an industry campaign to strip private enforcement from reform bills nationwide. New York saw it firsthand just a few months ago when it passed a landmark surveillance pricing bill that had been effectively neutered by industry carveouts that included the stripping of a private right of action. California is the latest example. Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the COMPETE Act (AB1776), which was supposed to be a much needed update to the state’s antitrust bill the Cartwright Act. After a multimillion-dollar campaign by the California Chamber of Commerce, the private right of action was stripped from the bill shortly before a final vote. Economic Liberties had to withdraw its support for the bill in response. 

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