The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced a civil penalty settlement with exercise equipment manufacturer Cybex International (Cybex).  Cybex has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $7.95 million to resolve charges that it knowingly failed to immediately report allegedly defectiveto the CPSC under Section 15(b) of the Consumer Product Safety Act.  This civil penalty, already the second of 2021, underscores a material change in enforcement approach from the past two years, in which the Commission did not announce a single civil penalty for violations of the product safety laws.

In this case, CPSC staff alleged that Cybex failed to report immediately to the Commission that it had information which reasonably supported the conclusion that components of certain pieces of its gym equipment—arm curl and press machines—could detach or fall causing severe injury to the user, including eye loss, spinal fracture, and in one case paralysis.  The Commission voted 3-0-1 to provisionally accept the settlement. We encourage our readers to review the settlement agreement here to learn more about the factual background.
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