MGM Resorts International has sued the Federal Trade Commission to stop an investigation into how it handled a cyberattack last year.
The company said the investigation deprives it of fundamental procedural rights and that Federal Trade Commission Chairman Lina Khan should recuse herself from the case, according to the lawsuit filed in Washington federal court on Monday.
Bloomberg previously reported that Khan was visiting the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in September when the company suffered a cyber attack that temporarily disabled its computer systems. According to Bloomberg, the front desk clerk asked Khan and her staff to write down their credit card information on a piece of paper when they checked into the hotel. In response, Khan asked the employee how MGM ensures data security in this situation.
Soon after, the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation and in January required the company to respond to its handling of the situation, the lawsuit says. The agency asked the company to hand over more than “100 categories of information.”
The company also said the FTC relied on “non-enforceable” rules that apply only to financial services companies to request information from a casino operator.
FTC representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Federal Trade Commission previously rejected the company’s request that Khan recuse herself from the investigation given her personal history of cyberattacks.
“As the most senior individual involved in the events in question—and the only such individual to be widely named in press reports—Chairman Khan is both a potential civil plaintiff and a potential witness,” the company’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. .