That’s a large chunk of change. The maximum penalty the CPSC can now impose on companies that violate it’s standards is set by Congress at $15 million dollars. CPSC was required to provide the criteria and circumstances for which it would use to assess fines for violations and listed the following criteria:

The nature of the product defect

The severity of the risk of injury

The occurrence or absence of injury

The number of defective products distributed

The appropriateness of such penalty in relation to the size of the business

Other factors may include:

failure to respond to CPSC requests for information or course of corrective action, economic gain from non-compliance, previous violations and non-compliance.

For more information visit www.cpsc.org. To see a copy of the rule, click here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-6940.pdf