How Food Fraud Class Actions Can Hold Companies Accountable
Welcome to Represent More, a production of We Are Them Media. In Episode 13, Ryan and Shireen Clarkson sit down with Clarkson partner Bahar Sodaify to discuss food fraud class actions, false advertising, and how consumers can come together to challenge misleading product claims.
Bahar was Clarkson’s first associate and later became the firm’s first homegrown partner. Today, she leads the firm’s food fraud practice, focusing on false advertising and consumer protection cases involving food, beverages, cosmetics, personal care products, and other everyday consumer goods.
Her interest in this work traces back to her childhood in a Persian family in Beverly Hills. After moving to the United States from Iran in 1977, Bahar’s parents were surprised by the processed foods and unfamiliar ingredients they encountered in American grocery stores. They went out of their way to find organic produce and taught Bahar and her brother to pay attention to what was actually in the products they consumed.
That awareness now plays a central role in the cases Bahar prosecutes. She discusses how food labeling and ingredient standards can differ between the United States and other countries, and why consumers should be able to trust the claims companies place on their products.
Ryan, Shireen, and Bahar also break down how a California consumer protection case is built using laws including the Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), Unfair Competition Law (UCL), and False Advertising Law (FAL). The goal can include both monetary relief for consumers and injunctive relief that changes how a company labels or markets its products.
The conversation explores why the class action device matters when individual losses may be too small to pursue alone. As Bahar puts it, it is not simply David versus Goliath. It is “a bunch of Davids and one Goliath,” and those Davids need to come together for the system to work.
Topics Covered This Episode
- Bahar Sodaify’s path to law and becoming Clarkson’s first homegrown partner
- How her upbringing shaped her work in food fraud and consumer protection
- Why food ingredients and labeling standards differ between the U.S. and other countries
- How California consumer protection laws help build food fraud class actions
- The $7.8 million Celsius settlement and slack fill cases that changed product packaging
- Why class actions give consumers more power to hold corporations accountable
Individual consumer harms can seem too small to fight alone. Class actions give people a way to come together, challenge misleading practices, and push for greater transparency and accountability in the marketplace.
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