A co-chair of Venable’s Autorenewal Solutions team, Ari Rothman focuses his nationwide practice on all legal facets of advertising and marketing, telemarketing, and payment processing. Ari represents advertisers, nutritional supplement and food companies, affiliate networks, lead generators, advertising agencies, payment processors, independent sales organizations (ISOs), and others in contract negotiations and compliance reviews. He also represents such clients in investigations before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general, in class action and business-to-business litigation, and before the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
He handles matters involving a broad spectrum of advertising laws, including autorenewal and email marketing laws; consumer protection statutes; the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA); the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C) and state laws following it, such as California’s Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law (Sherman Law); and others involving consumer purchasing experiences. With this experience, he offers a unique perspective when counseling clients and helping them find creative solutions to complex problems.
Ari’s practice includes:
- Advocating and litigating for clients in consumer class actions and individual actions brought under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act; the CAN-SPAM Act; state anti-spam statutes such as California Business & Professions Code 17529.5; California’s Proposition 65; and other state consumer protection laws
- Advocating and litigating business-to-business matters involving affiliate marketing and advertiser disputes, and partnership and contract disputes for companies involved in on-line marketing
- Representing clients in asset freeze cases brought under the Federal Trade Commission Act and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA)
- Representing merchants in disputes with payment processors, ISOs, and acquiring banks concerning withheld reserves, fines imposed by credit card associations, MATCH and Terminated Merchant File listings, and payment processing agreements
- Defending actions involving money laundering, "structuring," and wire and mail fraud, and contributing to bankruptcy adversary proceedings
In addition, Ari:
- Drafts, revises, and updates marketing/advertiser agreements, advertising/affiliate network agreements, publisher agreements, and employee agreements, and represents clients in negotiations concerning those agreements
- Provides compliance advice regarding advertisements created, published, and/or hosted by the client, and dissemination of such advertisements by email, text messaging, and other methods
- Advises advertising networks, advertisers, and publishers concerning asset and technology protection, privacy issues, protection of client and pricing information, and other compliance and best practices matters
- Consults with clients concerning trademark and copyright matters