Legislation

* § 348. Purpose and intent of article. The legislature declares that
the state has a responsibility to protect New Yorkers from unfair,
deceptive and abusive business acts and practices. The legislature
recognizes the limitations of the current state law, which prohibits
only the use of deceptive business acts and practices, and has proven
insufficient to satisfy the state's responsibilities to protect New
Yorkers and the New York economy from unfair, deceptive, and abusive
business practices. For too long, New Yorkers, especially New Yorkers
with limited income, communities of color, seniors, children, veterans,
and immigrant populations, have been left vulnerable to unscrupulous
business practices. It is time for New York to join all but a handful of
New York's fellow jurisdictions by adopting a comprehensive unfair,
deceptive, and abusive business acts and practices statute that gives
government and private parties the tools to address these harms. The
state must achieve the goal of deterring and remedying a broad range of
unfair, deceptive, and abusive business practices, and leveling the
playing field for the state's many honest businesses and non-profits
that treat their customers fairly. It must also anticipate future
unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts, including from new and emerging
technologies. To that end, this article defines unfair and abusive acts
and practices expansively to reach conduct that is unfair or abusive but
arguably not deceptive.

The state must also ensure the most meaningful and effective
protection to New Yorkers against unfair, deceptive, and abusive
business practices. This article therefore eliminates atextual
exceptions imposed by courts over the last five decades that have
limited the attorney general's power to enforce the statute to acts that
are "consumer-oriented" or that have an impact on the public at large.
The attorney general has a special responsibility to the public to
create a fair marketplace for all. That responsibility extends to
protecting businesses and non-profits as well as individuals. There is
no reason to believe that a small business or non-profit is any better
able to defend itself from unfair, abusive, and deceptive conduct than a
consumer, or that small entities need the protections of this article
any less than individuals do. The market and wider society is harmed by
the negative consequences that flow from unfair, deceptive, and abusive
business practices even if those acts and practices have not been
understood as "consumer-oriented".

* NB Effective February 17, 2026