Law / United States / Northern Mariana Islands
CNMI Consumer Protection Act, general applicability
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
In force since 2 February 1990.
An enforcement supervision rule binding private bodies.
As of 5 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not misrepresent the sponsorship, approval, characteristics, or affiliation of your product, service, or automated system to a Commonwealth consumer, including a chatbot or AI agent that could be mistaken for a human representative.
- Expect the CNMI Attorney General's Consumer Counsel, or a private plaintiff, to be the enforcer of a false data-handling or privacy representation, since the Commonwealth has no dedicated data-protection regulator or comprehensive privacy statute.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
4 CMC § 5122(a): a merchant who knowingly or recklessly violates the Act may be fined not more than $2,000, imprisoned not more than six months, or both, each violation a separate offense; § 5122(b) extends the same exposure to a corporate officer or agent who knowingly and willfully authorized, ordered, or carried out the violation.
Penalty structure
4 CMC § 5121(b) sets the general civil penalty at not more than $2,500 per violation, recovered by the Attorney General. A separate, higher penalty of up to $10,000 per violation applies under § 5121(a) where the violation is of an injunction issued under § 5107, and each day of continuing conduct is a separate violation under § 5121(a).
- Rule
- Per violation only
- As of
- 5 September 2026
- Currency
- USD
- Per violation unit
- Violation
- Per violation amount
- 2,500
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
CNMI Office of the Attorney General, through its designated Consumer Counsel
What it reaches
Obligation class
Prohibition, Disclosure
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
The Consumer Protection Act prohibits unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce, including passing off goods or services as another's, causing a likelihood of confusion as to affiliation or sponsorship, and representing that goods or services have characteristics they do not have.
It carries no personal-data-specific provision, but its general prohibition on deceptive representations is the Commonwealth's only current mechanism against a business that misrepresents its own data collection, use, or sharing practices, the role the Federal Trade Commission Act's Section 5 plays nationally absent a comprehensive federal statute. A consumer counsel designated within the Office of the Attorney General enforces the Act, and an aggrieved consumer may also sue directly.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_webtrains_modelsdeploys_chatbotautomated_outreachgenerates_content
Read the law
Official Commonwealth Code text, CNMI Law Revision Commission