MGM Resorts is suing the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in efforts, claiming that the regulatory body is overstepping its bounds in its investigation into the cyber-attack on the gaming operator last September.
MGM Resorts International filed a lawsuit in the US capital on Monday ‘to challenge actions by the FTC and its Chair and FTC regulations that have deprived, and continue to deprive, MGM of these fundamental rights’.
The cyber-attack last September caused MGM to ‘temporarily run its business […] without the use of the IT systems that help make its casinos and resorts best-in-class’, the action states.
The group claims that it is not a financial institution and as such should not be subject to FTC rules about consumer financial data.
It also highlights that the FTC Commissioner, Lina Khan, was personally involved in the matter, as Bloomberg reported she was checking into the MGM hotel when the hack hobbled the group’s IT systems. The group is seeking for the Khan to recuse herself from the proceedings.
The lawsuit also states that the FTC ‘seeks to compel MGM to produce more than 100 categories of information’, saying that certain rule enforcement actions by the FTC have never before been attempted against a casino operator such as MGM.
MGM is further challenging the 11-day deadline to comply with a Civil Investigative Demand (CID), which it called a ‘plainly unreasonable deadline’, stating ‘the CID to MGM was premised in large part on facially inapplicable rules without any attempt to delineate which portions of the CID relate to which purported sources of authority’.
The cyber-attack on MGM has already reportedly cost the company over $100 million in lost revenue, tens of millions in damages and the company is facing over a dozen consumer class action lawsuits.
The attack caused IT systems to crash at MGM’s US-based hotels and casinos for days, shutting down slot machines, rendering mobile and door keys inoperable and causing hand-written room check-ins.
MGM Resorts is the parent company of MGM China, which operates two integrated resorts in Macau.
