Wal-Mart Settles Arizona Pricing Suit

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

PHOENIX — Wal-Mart Stores has agreed to establish a “rigorous” price inspection and monitoring system in Arizona to ensure the state’s consumers have access to accurate and clearly posted prices, Terry Goddard, the state's attorney general, said last week.

“If Arizona's largest retailer can commit to price accuracy, I expect every Arizona business can do the same,” Goddard said in a press release.
Wal-Mart officials could not be reached for comment.

The settlement, in the form of a consent judgment, followed a lawsuit filed in July 2006 that said Wal-Mart had failed 526 pricing inspections out of 976 conducted by the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures between 2001 and 2006, including 366 price-posting violations and 160 price-scanning violations for which the company paid $450,000 in civil fines; since the suit was filed, Wal-Mart has paid additional fines totaling $304,000.

Under the settlement, Wal-Mart agreed to appoint an independent monitoring company to design and conduct price-accuracy and price-posting inspections at 40 of its 92 Arizona stores each year for three years. A store will pass inspection if at least 98% of the merchandise has prices that are clearly and accurately marked, the AG said in the press release. If a store fails an inspection, Wal-Mart will be required to pay the state a fine of $2,500, and the store must be re-inspected, with each failure to pass adding another $5,000 fine.

The AG also said Wal-Mart has agreed to a $1 million financial settlement, with the money going toward the cost of the monitoring program as well as consumer education and fraud prevention. The settlement, which takes the form of a consent judgment, was filed here last week.

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