Markets Wired

A federal judge has ordered journal publisher and conference organizer Srinubabu Gedela and his companies to pay more than $50.1 million to resolve Federal Trade Commission charges that they made deceptive claims to academics and researchers about the nature of their conferences and publications, and hid steep publication fees.

“These publishing companies lied about their academic journals and took millions of dollars from aspiring researchers and writers,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “We’re pleased with the court’s strong order holding these companies and its owner responsible for the damage they caused.”

In its 2016 complaint, the FTC alleged that OMICS Group Inc., iMedPub LLC, Conference Series LLC, and the owner of these companies, Gedela, advertised hundreds of online academic journals and international conferences for scientists and medical professionals, and deceptively claimed that their journals provided authors with rigorous peer review and had editorial boards made up of prominent academics. In reality, many articles were published with little to no peer review, and many individuals represented to be editors had not agreed to be affiliated with the journals.

The FTC further alleged that the defendants represented that their journals had been accepted by prominent academic indexing services such as the National Institute of Health’s “PubMed Central.” In fact, NIH had refused to index the defendants’ journals and demanded that they cease representing that the defendants’ journals were associated with PubMed.

The FTC also alleged that the defendants failed to properly tell authors who submitted papers for consideration that the defendants would charge the authors significant publishing fees. The defendants also failed to allow authors to withdraw their articles from submission, making their research ineligible for publication in other journals.

Finally, the complaint alleged that, to promote their scientific conferences, the defendants deceptively used the names of prominent researchers as conference presenters, when in fact many of those researchers had not agreed to participate in the events.

In November 2017, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction requested by the FTC, temporarily halting the deceptive practices of these academic journal publishers.

In a recent summary judgment decision, the court found that the defendants violated the FTC Act by making deceptive claims regarding their academic journals and scientific conferences, and by failing to adequately disclose their publishing fees. The resulting final order prohibits the defendants from making misrepresentations regarding their academic journals and conferences, including that specific persons are editors of their journals or have agreed to participate in their conferences, that their journals engage in peer review, that their journals are included in any academic journal indexing service, or the extent to which their journals are cited. It also requires that the defendants clearly and conspicuously disclose all costs associated with submitting or publishing articles in their journals. The order also requires the defendants to obtain express written consent from any person the defendants represent to be associated with their academic journals or scientific conferences. The order enters a judgment against the defendants in the amount of $50.1 million.

The FTC would like to thank the U.S. National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health for its invaluable assistance in this case.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada issued the summary judgment order on March 29, 2019.

The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about consumer topics and file a consumer complaint online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357). Like the FTC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, read our blogs, and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources.