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SALT LAKE CITY—1-800 Contacts has agreed to pay $15.1 million to settle a class action lawsuit claiming that the Utah-based company unlawfully restricted search advertising, according to court papers filed here on May 15. The plaintiffs, who make up a proposed class of consumers, revealed the settlement amount after alerting the U.S. District Court District of Utah, Central Division on Friday that they had reached an agreement with 1-800 Contacts. The court then issued a proposed order which preliminarily approves the settlement. If approved, the agreement will end the four-year-old antitrust suit.

1-800 Contacts has denied any liability, fault, or wrongdoing in connection with any of the allegations in the suit. “It is certainly nice to have this distraction behind us,” 1-800 Contacts CEO John Graham told VMAIL. “After negotiations, the cost of litigating was going to be more than the cost of settling, so we settled and now we’re ready to focus on taking care of customers.”

The core of the lawsuit, which was filed in 2016, was centered upon the purchase of search engine keywords by the online sellers of contact lenses and agreements among these companies that resulted in competition being stifled, according to the court papers. The online retailers “committed not to compete against one another in certain, critical online advertising” by blocking their search ads from appearing when consumers typed the phrase “1-800 Contacts” into a search engine, according to court documents.

The agreements first became public in mid-2016 when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced an administrative action against 1-800 Contacts in which the agency challenged “the legality of the previously concealed agreements” that addressed the keyword purchases by the online retailers, as VMAIL reported.

At the time of the FTC action, however, the agency redacted the identity of the other online contact lens sellers involved (other than 1-800 Contacts) and their identities “only became public later during the FTC proceedings,” according to the court documents in the civil complaint. The FTC charged that 1-800 Contacts unlawfully orchestrated and maintained “a web of anticompetitive agreements with rival online contact lens sellers that suppress competition in certain online search advertising auctions.”

As a result, consumers only saw limited online advertising for contact lenses and may have paid higher retail prices than if the advertising agreements were not in place, the FTC said.

The plaintiffs in the suit are a class of consumers who purchased contact lenses online at various times between 2004 and 2013. The defendants in the suit included National Vision, Arlington Contact Lens Service, Luxottica of America, Vision Direct, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Walgreen Co.

The plaintiffs settled claims against Luxottica Retail North America, as VMAIL reported in July, 2019.

Settlements were also reached with National Vision Inc., and its subsidiary, Arlington Contact Lens Service () (AC Lens), which VMAIL reported in September, 2017.

1-800 Contacts is the last company to reach a settlement with the plaintiffs.