Today, BBB National Programs announced that NAD's Fast-Track SWIFT process is getting a new lane focused on disclosures. NAD launched its new Fast-Track SWIFT process back in April 2020  and just over a year and a half after its debut, it's already evolving. (For more information on SWIFT generally, check out our blog posts available here and here.)

Following NAD's disclosure at its annual conference that SWIFT cases made up only 7% of decisions in 2021, they indicated that they would soon be rolling out a new mechanism to help encourage use of the Fast-Track process for disclosure cases, and we just received some additional information on that process today.

The new "streamlined" lane is "designed specifically to address the prominence and sufficiency of disclosures in national advertising" and is intended to "make the challenge of misleading advertising disclosures more efficient" with hopes of encouraging use of the process for influencer marketing, consumer reviews, and dark pattern issues.

To make the process more efficient, the new lane will utilize pre-existing SWIFT procedures but "removes the requirement to submit a letter with the challenge (now optional)." Instead, challengers can simply explain the alleged disclosure deficiency and provide relevant images via an online submission form. The new lane also reduces the filing fee for these types of challenges: $10,000 for members and $12,500 for non-members (as compared to member fees ranging from $12,000 to $40,000 and non-member fees ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 depending on the size of the challenger).

NAD's online portal for submitting challenges now features a new "SWIFT-Disclosure" option (in addition to the pre-existing "SWIFT" option), which challengers can use to take advantage of the new lane.