The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has settled with yet another maker of weight loss supplements, charged for using false and unsubstantiated product claims.
San Antonio, Texas-based Mark Nutritionals had claimed that its Body Solutions Evening Weight Loss Formula causes substantial and permanent weight loss without diet or exercise. The company and its officers, Mark Siskind and Edward D'Alessandro, were pulled up by the FTC in December 2002 for their advertising, mainly through radio ads, and put under preliminary injunction.
The settlement prohibits Mark Nutritionals from engaging in any business activity and D'Alessandro has been ordered to pay $140,000 in charges. The case against Siskind is still pending.
Since 1999, the defendants' sales of Evening Formula totaled more than $155 million. Mark Nutritionals filed for chapter 11 reorganization in bankruptcy court in September 2002 and in April 2003, the bankruptcy court converted the case to a chapter 7 liquidation. Since then, Mark Nutritionals has ceased all manufacturing and sales.