SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—Costco and 1-800 Contacts have sided with the state of Utah in its passage last month of the “Contact Lens Consumer Protection Act” that was signed into law on March 27, 2015, by Utah Governor Gary Herbert in response to the major contact lens manufacturers instituting Unilateral Pricing Policy (UPP) programs over the past two years.

The law is scheduled to go into effect on May 12, 2015, but Alcon, Bausch + Lomb, and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care filed lawsuits April 14, 2015, to stop that state’s attorney general from enforcing the new law, as reported by VMail.

On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court of Utah approved 1-800 Contacts’ and Costco’s motions to intervene, which were filed April 17 and April 20, 2015, respectively. In the same court order, Judge Benson also consolidated all three cases for all purposes.

In its motion to intervene, 1-800 Contacts cites that the Contact Lens Consumer Protection Act enacts Utah Code, “which prohibits a contact lens manufacturer from, among other things, taking actions to control the price charged by a contact lens retailer.”

Costco’s motion states, “Costco Wholesale seeks to intervene in this litigation because as a retailer of contact lenses in Utah, Costco Wholesale and its customers are direct beneficiaries of the Contact Lens Act and therefore have significant interests in the litigation.”

In addition, in their motions to intervene, Costco and 1-800 both refer to the contact lens manufacturers’ pricing policies as resale price maintenance (RPM) rather than UPP.

The court will hear oral arguments in the case on May 5, 2015, at 2 pm.