In January 2015, we reported that California’s law on advertising “Made in USA” claims, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17533.7, had been interpreted as imposing a stricter standard than guidelines adopted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on the same issue. Specifically, the California law had been interpreted to require that 100 percent of all labor and material in a product be domestic before the product could be advertised as “Made in USA.”
On Sept. 1, 2015, California amended its statute. The new statute allows a manufacturer to advertise a product as “Made in the USA” as long as (1) the foreign components of the product do not “constitute more than 5% of the final wholesale value” of the product, or (2) the manufacturer can show that it cannot obtain the foreign components of the product in the U.S. and those components “constitute not more than 10% of the final wholesale value” of the product. The amended statute takes effect Jan. 1, 2016.