⚖️ FTC Enforcement Actions Scraper

Export the FTC's cases and proceedings library as rows: case name, matter number, docket number, whether it is administrative or federal, whether it is pending or closed, the date it was last updated, and the Commission's own summary. No API key, no registration, no login.

The Federal Trade Commission publishes every case it brings at ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings. It is the record of which companies were sued, which mergers were challenged, and how each one ended. The library paginates ten at a time, has no export, and the case type and status live in a sidebar rather than in the listing. This Actor walks the pages and writes each case into a dataset you can open in a spreadsheet.

Who uses it	What they use the library for
🏢 Acquisition entrepreneurs and search funds	Checking whether a target, its owner or its parent has an FTC action against it before an LOI
📐 Private equity and corporate development	Reading how the Commission treated comparable deals in the same sector before signing
🧾 Diligence and compliance teams	Building a dated file of consent orders, bans and settlements by company name
📰 Legal researchers and reporters	Tracking pending matters by docket number without refreshing a listing page

📋 What it does

💡 Why it matters: a blocked merger is public the day it is filed. The library holds both halves of the risk in one place: whether the business you are buying has been sued, and whether a deal like yours has been stopped.

• ⚖️ Returns one row per case from the FTC's cases and proceedings library, newest first.
• 🔢 Carries the case identifiers. Matter number and docket number, where the Commission assigns them, which is how a case is looked up in the record.
• 🏛 Separates administrative from federal. caseType tells you whether the matter sits before the Commission or in a district court.
• 🚦 Tracks status. caseStatus is Pending or Closed, so a watchlist can be re-run and diffed.
• 📝 Includes the FTC's own summary of the case, which names the parties, the conduct and the remedy.
• 📄 Pages backwards through the archive. startPage moves the run to older listing pages instead of the newest.
• 💾 Exports to CSV, Excel, JSON or XML, from the run page or the API.

📊 Output

Every case is one flat row, with the same ten fields on every run. null means the Commission publishes no value for that field on that case.

Field	Type	Description
⚖️ title	string	Case name as the FTC lists it, for example Asbury Automotive Group, Inc., et al., In the Matter of
🔢 matterNumber	string	FTC matter number, for example 222 3135. Often null on federal court cases
📁 docketNumber	string	Docket number, for example 9436. Usually present on administrative matters, null on many federal ones
🏛 caseType	string	Administrative or Federal
🚦 caseStatus	string	Pending or Closed
📅 lastUpdated	string	ISO date the FTC last updated the case page
📝 summary	string	The Commission's description of the case, its parties and its outcome
🔗 url	string	Link to the case page on ftc.gov
🕒 scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of collection
⚠️ error	string	null on a normal row

Example rows

{
  "title": "Humboldt Merchant Services",
  "matterNumber": null,
  "docketNumber": null,
  "caseType": "Federal",
  "caseStatus": "Closed",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-09-11T12:00:00Z",
  "summary": "Payment processing company Humboldt Merchant Services will pay $12 million and be permanently banned from processing payments for merchants with a heightened risk of potential fraud to settle allegations that Humboldt processed payments for merchants that defrauded consumers. According to the FTC’s complaint ,  Humboldt processed payments for more than 1,000 merchants that were shell entities that served as fronts or pass-throughs for fraudulent companies engaged in unauthorized billing scams, including Legion Media, which the FTC shut down in 2024.",
  "url": "https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/humboldt-merchant-services",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-14T17:31:33.481Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "title": "Henkel, A-Paint",
  "matterNumber": null,
  "docketNumber": null,
  "caseType": "Administrative",
  "caseStatus": "Pending",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-09-11T12:00:00Z",
  "summary": "The Federal Trade Commission sued to block Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (Henkel), the manufacturer of the industry-leading Loctite brand construction adhesives, from acquiring Loctite’s main competitor, Liquid Nails. The FTC alleges that the merger would eliminate fierce competition between Loctite and Liquid Nails, leading to higher prices, lower quality, and reduced innovation, all of which would be detrimental to American consumers. On August 14, 2026, after a seven-day trial, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the FTC’s request for a permanent injunction to block Henkel’s proposed $725 million acquisition of Liquid Nails from private equity firm American Industrial Partners ",
  "url": "https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/henkel-paint",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-14T17:31:33.481Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

	What you get
The primary record	Rows come from the Commission's own case library, not from a news write-up of it.
Status you can diff	Re-run a watchlist and compare caseStatus and lastUpdated to see what moved.
Identifiers, not just names	Matter and docket numbers are what a lawyer will ask for when you escalate a finding.
The archive, not only the front page	startPage walks back through older listing pages.
You pay per row	No subscription. A run that returns nothing costs nothing.

🚀 How to use it

1. Create a free Apify account. New accounts start with $5 of credit.
2. Open the Actor and select Try for free.
3. Leave startPage at 0 for the newest cases, or raise it to reach older ones.
4. Set maxItems to cap the run.
5. Select Start, then export from the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML.

The newest cases:

{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "startPage": 0
}

A deeper pull from further back in the archive:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "startPage": 5
}

⚙️ Input

Field	Required	Description
maxItems	No	Maximum cases to collect in a run. Defaults to 10
startPage	No	Listing page to start at. 0 is the newest. Defaults to 0

💰 Pricing

Pay per result. No subscription, and no Apify platform usage on top.

Apify plan	Free	Bronze	Silver	Gold	Platinum	Diamond
Per case row	$0.021	$0.02033	$0.01967	$0.019	$0.019	$0.019

Rows collected	Cost on the Free plan
100	$2.10
1,000	$21.00
10,000	$210.00

Free plan runs return up to 10 rows as a preview. Any paid Apify plan lifts that to 1,000,000 per run.

🔌 Integrate with any app

The dataset is available through the Apify API as soon as the run finishes. Use run-sync-get-dataset-items for a one-shot call, webhooks to trigger what happens next, or the Make, Zapier, Airbyte and LangChain integrations listed on the Actor page.

🤖 Use with an AI agent

Give an agent live access to the case library over the Model Context Protocol:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=acquistion-automation/ftc-actions-scraper"

Then ask it in plain language which merger challenges are still pending and have it read the summaries back.

❓ Frequently asked questions

Does this return press releases or the full legal documents? Neither. Each row is a case entry from the cases and proceedings library: its name, identifiers, type, status, date and the Commission's summary. The complaints, orders and exhibits live behind url on ftc.gov.

Why are matterNumber and docketNumber sometimes null? The FTC does not assign both to every case. Administrative matters usually carry a docket number, and many federal court cases carry neither on the case page.

Can I search by company name? There is no keyword input. Collect a range of pages and filter title and summary in your spreadsheet or database afterwards.

How far back can I go? startPage walks the listing backwards as far as the library paginates. Each page holds the Commission's own batch of cases.

Do I need a proxy? No. Requests and retries are handled inside the Actor and included in the price.

What can I export? CSV, Excel, JSON and XML from the run page, or JSON straight from the API.

🔗 More from Acquisition Automation Co.

• SEC Investor Alerts Scraper
• SAM.gov Contract Opportunities Scraper
• IRS Exempt Organizations Scraper
• USCG PSIX Vessel Registry Scraper
• BizBuySell Scraper

About Acquisition Automation Co.

We build automation for people buying businesses. The repetitive part of an acquisition search, checking listings, pulling public records, tracking owners and assets, is work a machine should do, so the buyer's time goes into judging deals instead of collecting them.

We add new Actors regularly. If there is a source you need and do not see here, tell us.

🆘 Support

Open an issue in the Issues tab of this Actor with your run ID, the input you used, and what you expected to get back.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission or any government agency. It collects only publicly available data, and nothing here is legal advice. You are responsible for using that data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable law.