2014-05844. Agency Information Collection Activities;

Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

AGENCY:

Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION:

Notice and request for comment.

SUMMARY:

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, the FTC is seeking public comments on its request to OMB for a three-year extension of the current PRA clearance for the information collection requirements contained in the Informal Dispute Settlement Procedures Rule. That clearance expires on March 31, 2014.

DATES:

Comments must be received by April 17, 2014.

ADDRESSES:

Interested parties may file a comment online or on paper, by following the instructions in the Request for Comment part of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Requests for additional information or copies of the proposed information requirements should be addressed to Svetlana Gans, Attorney, Division of Marketing Practices, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, Room H-286, 600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW., Washington, DC 20580, [phone].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Title: Informal Dispute Settlement Procedures Rule (the Dispute Settlement Rule or the Rule), 16 CFR 703.

OMB Control Number: 3084-0113.

Type of Review: Extension of a currently approved collection.

Abstract: The Informal Dispute Settlement Procedures Rule (the Dispute Settlement Rule or the Rule) specifies the minimum standards which must be met by any informal dispute settlement mechanism (IDSM) that is incorporated into a written consumer product warranty and which the consumer must use before pursuing legal remedies under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, 15 U.S.C. 2301 et seq. (Warranty Act or Act) in court. These minimum standards for IDSMs include requirements concerning the mechanism's structure (e.g., funding, staffing, and neutrality), the qualifications of staff or decision makers, the mechanism's procedures for resolving disputes (e.g., notification, investigation, time limits for decisions, and follow-up), recordkeeping, and annual audits. The Rule requires that IDSMs establish written operating procedures and provide copies of those procedures upon request. The Rule applies only to those firms that choose to be bound by it by requiring consumers to use an IDSM. A warrantor is free to set up an IDSM that does not comply with the Rule as long as the warranty does not contain a prior resort requirement.

On December 10, 2013, the Commission sought comment on the Rule's information collection requirements.^[1] The Commission did not receive any comments. As required by OMB regulations, 5 CFR part 1320, the FTC is providing this second opportunity for public comment.

Likely Respondents: Warrantors (Automobile Manufacturers) and Informal Dispute Settlement Mechanisms

Estimated Annual Hours Burden: 8,318 hours (derived from (5,757 hours for recordkeeping + 1,919 hours for reporting + 642 hours for disclosures).

Estimated Number of Respondents, Estimated Average Burden per Respondent:

(a) Recordkeeping—IDSMs, 2, 30 minutes/case for 11,514 annual consumer cases;

(b) Reporting—IDSMs, 2, 10 minutes/case for 11,514 annual consumer cases; &

(c) Disclosures—Warrantors, 15, annual 30 hours; IDSMs, 2, 5 minutes/case for 2,303 consumer cases.

Frequency of Response: Periodic.

Total Annual Labor Cost: $161,000, rounded to nearest thousand.

Total Annual Capital or Other Non-Labor Cost: $314,000, rounded to the nearest thousand.

Request for Comments

You can file a comment online or on paper. For the Commission to consider your comment, we must receive it on or before April 17, 2014. Write “Warranty Rules: Paperwork Comment, FTC File No. P044403” on your comment. Your comment—including your name and your state—will be placed on the public record of this proceeding, including, to the extent practicable, on the public Commission Web site, at http://www.ftc.gov/​os/​publiccomments.shtm. As a matter of discretion, the Commission tries to remove individuals' home contact information from comments before placing them on the Commission Web site.

Because your comment will be made public, you are solely responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any sensitive personal information, such as anyone's Social Security number, date of birth, driver's license number or other state identification number or foreign country equivalent, passport number, financial account number, or credit or debit card number. You are also solely responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any sensitive health information, like medical records or other individually identifiable health information. In addition, do not include any “[t]rade secret or any commercial or financial information which is . . . privileged or confidential,” as discussed in Section 6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 4.10(a)(2). In particular, do not include competitively sensitive information such as costs, sales statistics, inventories, formulas, patterns, devices, manufacturing processes, or customer names.

If you want the Commission to give your comment confidential treatment, you must file it in paper form, with a request for confidential treatment, and you are required to follow the procedure explained in FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c). Your comment will be kept confidential only if the FTC General Counsel grants your request in accordance with the law and the public interest.

Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay due to heightened security screening. As a result, we encourage you to submit your comment online, or to send it to the Commission by courier or overnight service. To make sure that the Commission considers your online comment, you must file it at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/​ftc/​idsrpra2,, by following the instructions on the web-based form. If this Notice appears at http://www.regulations.gov, you also may file a comment through that Web site.

If you file your comment on paper, write “Warranty Rules: Paperwork Comment, FTC File No. P044403” on your comment and on the envelope, and mail or deliver it to the following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, Room H-113 (Annex J), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20580. If possible, submit your paper comment to the Commission by courier or overnight service.

The FTC Act and other laws that the Commission administers permit the collection of public comments to consider and use in this proceeding as appropriate. The Commission will consider all timely and responsive public comments that it receives on or before April 17, 2014. You can find more information, including routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, in the Commission's privacy policy, at http://www.ftc.gov/​ftc/​privacy.shtm.

Comments on the information collection requirements subject to review under the PRA should also be submitted to OMB. If sent by U.S. mail, address comments to: Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, Attention: Desk Officer for the Federal Trade Commission, New Executive Office Building, Docket Library, Room 10102, 725 17th Street NW., Washington, DC 20503. Comments sent to OMB by U.S. postal mail, however, are subject to delays due to heightened security precautions. Thus, comments instead should be sent by facsimile to [phone].

David C. Shonka,

Principal Deputy General Counsel.

Footnotes

1.  See 78 FR 74142 (60-Day Federal Register Notice).