Law / United States / 
Northern Mariana Islands
CNMI Consumer Protection Act, general applicability
In force since .
An enforcement supervision rule binding private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- on_request
- Who audits it
- Regulator
What it requires
- Do not misrepresent the sponsorship, approval, characteristics, or affiliation of your product, service, or automated system to a Commonwealth consumer, including a chatbot or AI agent that could be mistaken for a human representative.
- Expect the CNMI Attorney General's Consumer Counsel, or a private plaintiff, to be the enforcer of a false data-handling or privacy representation, since the Commonwealth has no dedicated data-protection regulator or comprehensive privacy statute.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Salty Saipan Corp. v. Shakir, 2018 MP 18 (recorded ).
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
4 CMC § 5122(a): a merchant who knowingly or recklessly violates the Act may be fined not more than $2,000, imprisoned not more than six months, or both, each violation a separate offense; § 5122(b) extends the same exposure to a corporate officer or agent who knowingly and willfully authorized, ordered, or carried out the violation.
Penalty structure
4 CMC § 5121(b) sets the general civil penalty at not more than $2,500 per violation, recovered by the Attorney General. A separate, higher penalty of up to $10,000 per violation applies under § 5121(a) where the violation is of an injunction issued under § 5107, and each day of continuing conduct is a separate violation under § 5121(a).
- Rule
- Per violation only
- As of
- Currency
- USD
- Per violation unit
- Violation
- Per violation amount
- 2,500
Statutory damages
- As of
- Class action available
- Yes
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
CNMI Office of the Attorney General, through its designated Consumer Counsel
Settledness
- As of
- Case link
- https://cnmilaw.org/pdf/supreme/2018-MP-18.pdf
- Case citation
- Salty Saipan Corp. v. Shakir, 2018 MP 18
- Open questions
- Does 'the consumer' in section 5105(m), a term that section 5104 does not define, include a person who uses a service without paying for it?
What it reaches
How the hook was established
express
What makes it apply
Operator establishment
Obligation class
Prohibition, Disclosure
Applicability criteria
- As of
- Combinator
- All of
- Criteria
- in the conduct of any trade or commerce
What it makes you log
Who may demand the log
Regulator
Logging duty
The Act declares unfair and deceptive practices unlawful and gives the Attorney General and a consumer counsel enforcement tools. It names no log, register or record that a merchant must keep and sets no retention period. Section 5115(a) lets the Attorney General serve an investigative demand on any person believed to hold information, documentary material or physical evidence, and section 5116 adds subpoenas and a bar on public disclosure of what is obtained. That is a regulator's power to demand production, not a duty to log. Section 5114 assurances of voluntary compliance are filed with the Superior Court and are not a record the merchant keeps. The merchant definition in section 5104(f) reaches a person who must hold a Commonwealth business license or who, from outside the Commonwealth, engages in commerce within it.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
The Consumer Protection Act prohibits unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce, including passing off goods or services as another's, causing a likelihood of confusion as to affiliation or sponsorship, and representing that goods or services have characteristics they do not have.
It carries no personal-data-specific provision, but its general prohibition on deceptive representations is the Commonwealth's only current mechanism against a business that misrepresents its own data collection, use, or sharing practices, the role the Federal Trade Commission Act's Section 5 plays nationally absent a comprehensive federal statute. A consumer counsel designated within the Office of the Attorney General enforces the Act, and an aggrieved consumer may also sue directly.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app deploys a chatbot or processes personal data.
Back to the example · Lint your app
Page updated .