What were the terms and scope of the $5.25 million settlement related to green coffee and Garcinia promotions?
Executive summary
The $5.25 million settlement resolved a class action accusing Mehmet Oz and related media defendants of promoting green coffee bean extract and Garcinia cambogia products as miraculous weight-loss cures on The Dr. Oz Show; the defendants agreed to create a $5.25 million fund to compensate consumers and provide limited injunctive relief without admitting liability after mediation [1] [2]. The deal spelled out who qualifies, how much claimants can receive, priority payments from the fund, and a promise to pull three episodes and remove online clips that promoted the products [1] [2].
1. What the settlement paid for and how the fund is allocated
The agreement created a $5.25 million common fund to be distributed in a specified order: first to pay any taxes and tax expenses and all settlement administration costs; next to pay class counsel fees and expenses up to 33% of the fund; then to pay three class representative incentive awards (two awards of $5,000 and one of $7,500); and finally to make payments to authorized class members from any remaining money [2] [3]. The Manatt summary and Lexology reporting both emphasize that counsel’s fees were capped at one-third of the fund and that administration and tax costs take priority before individual relief [2] [3].
2. Who qualifies as a class member and the temporal/situational scope
Class membership was limited to U.S. residents who purchased green coffee bean extract or Garcinia cambogia products after either viewing specific Dr. Oz episodes about those products or after seeing “fake” ads purporting to be endorsed or approved by Dr. Oz and the media defendants; one formulation covers purchases from February 2, 2012 until dissemination of the settlement notice [1]. The Manatt notices explain that eligibility turns on both purchase and exposure to the challenged promotional material — not simply on buying a product in the marketplace — which narrows the class to consumers who were actually influenced by the contested broadcasts or ads [1] [2].
3. How individual payments were calculated and proof rules
Claimants were slated to receive $30 in cash for each product purchased, with a cap of $90 per household if no receipts were produced; claimants who submitted receipts faced no per-household limit and could receive compensation for all qualifying purchases they could prove [1] [2]. The settlement thus created a two-tier claim process: modest, capped “no-proof” payments to simplify recovery for many consumers, and uncapped payments for those who kept purchase evidence, a common structure in consumer class settlements intended to balance administrative ease with equitable relief [1] [2].
4. Non-monetary terms, admissions and bargaining posture
As part of the deal, the defendants agreed not to re-air the three Dr. Oz episodes that promoted the products and to remove online clips from those episodes — a narrow injunctive step aimed at limiting future consumer exposure to the disputed promotions [1] [2]. The media defendants reached the settlement “without admitting any liability,” according to the Manatt briefing, a standard formulation that resolves litigation while avoiding an admission of wrongdoing but also denies plaintiffs a formal judicial finding of deception [1].
5. Broader regulatory and litigation context
The settlement sits amid a wider enforcement sweep: the FTC separately pursued manufacturers and marketers of green coffee and related supplements, securing multimillion-dollar judgments and prohibitions on false advertising (including settlements and judgments of $3.5M, $9M and larger combined recoveries in other actions), which regulators cited to show a pattern of deceptive weight-loss marketing tied to these products and TV endorsements [4] [5] [6]. Those parallel actions show that the class litigation against media defendants was one element of a larger accountability effort involving product makers, marketers and regulatory agencies [7] [8].
6. Takeaway — scope, limits and remaining questions
The $5.25 million deal provided concrete, if modest, monetary relief for consumers who both bought the products and were exposed to the challenged Dr. Oz promotions, set clear priorities for how the fund would be spent, and removed the specific episodes and online clips from circulation — all while preserving the defendants’ denial of liability [1] [2]. Reporting from law firms and settlement sites lays out the mechanics and eligibility rules, but publicly available summaries do not disclose detailed claims administration projections (such as estimated per-claim payment after attorney fees and administration), so questions about the ultimate per-claim recovery and total number of paid claims remain unanswered in the sources provided [1] [9].