AB 814: Consumer protection: enforcement powers: investigatory subpoena.

The Unfair Competition Law (UCL) establishes a statutory cause of action for unfair competition, including any unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue, or misleading advertising. Under this law, actions for relief are required to be prosecuted exclusively by the Attorney General, a district attorney, a county counsel authorized by agreement with the district attorney in actions involving violation of a county ordinance, a city attorney of a city having a population in excess of 750,000, or a city attorney in a city and county, or, with the consent of the district attorney, by a city prosecutor in a city having a full-time city prosecutor in the name of the people of the State of California, as specified, or by a person who has suffered injury in fact and has lost money or property as a result of the unfair competition.

Existing law authorizes a district attorney, upon reasonable belief there has been a violation of the UCL or various other laws related to unfair business practices, to exercise all the powers granted to the Attorney General as a head of department to investigate the potential violation, including the authority to issue subpoenas.

This bill would specify that this investigatory power granted to the Attorney General as a head of a department applies to a city attorney of a city having a population in excess of 750,000 or to a city attorney in the of a city and county when those city attorneys reasonably believe that there may have been a violation of the UCL.