Sacramento Court Agrees with CalChamber: CalChamber Statement

In response to a lawsuit filed by the California Chamber of Commerce, the Sacramento Superior Court has ruled that the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) must delay enforcement of any individual regulation for a one-year period following the date it goes into effect.

In a ruling issued by Judge James P. Arguelles today, the court agreed with CalChamber’s assertion that the voters intended there to be a gap between adoption of final regulations by the CPPA and the time they could be enforced. CalChamber argued that it would be unfair to enforce a law against businesses when they don’t even know what the rules are yet.

“Today’s ruling provides some certainty and basic fairness for California businesses as they work to comply with the complicated mandates called for in Proposition 24,” said CalChamber President and CEO Jennifer Barrera. “In passing Proposition 24, voters understood that businesses should be provided time to implement new rules before any enforcement action is taken. The Court underscored this today, recognizing that it would be unfair for the CPPA to enforce new regulations when the impacted businesses did not even know what was going to be required of them. We are grateful that the Court recognized the predicament faced by California businesses in these circumstances and provided a commonsense interpretation that aligns with what voters approved in passing Proposition 24.”

The CPPA was to have published complete and final regulations by July 1, 2022 with an enforcement date of July 1, 2023. However, the CPPA had not promulgated a final and complete set of regulations in the timeframe called for in the measure nor by the time the litigation was filed in March 2023. Following today’s ruling, the CPPA must create enforcement deadlines that tie directly to the implementation date of each individual rule—a full 12 months following the date they become effective.