Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Worth Bullion Group, Inc.

Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Right to Financial Privacy Act
Citation
Case Number: 
No. 12-3372
Decision Date: 
May 29, 2013
Federal District: 
N.D. Ill., E. Div.
Holding: 
Affirmed
Dist. Ct. did not err in directing defendants (entities that conducted sales in precious metals) to fully comply with administrative subpoenas issued by plaintiff, which had been conducting investigation into whether defendants had violated various sections of Commodity Exchange Act. Record showed that defendants had partially complied with subpoenas by producing documents containing redacted names and contact information of defendants’ customers. While defendants claimed that they were precluded from disclosing customers’ names and contact information by Right to Financial Privacy Act (FRPA) because they qualified as “consumer finance institutions” under said Act due to fact that they helped finance customers’ purchases of precious metals, defendants were not “customer financial institutions” under RFPA, (and thus defendants were required to produce customer names and contact information) since nature of defendants’ businesses was sale of precious metals, as opposed to providing loans to customers for personal, household or other consumer purposes.