In Utah, Huntsman has cozied up to and gone to bat for various multilevel marketing (MLM) companies like Nu Skin and Usana. MLM companies sell products through networks of individual distributors instead of by retail and are widely considered pyramid schemes. Stephanie Mencimer reports:
At the behest of the Direct Selling Association, the trade lobby for multilevel marketing companies, the state Legislature passed a bill that essentially gutted Utah's anti-pyramid-scheme law. The bill Huntsman then signed into law may have sanctioned the practices of at least 20 companies in the state thought to be illegally operating a pyramid scheme under the old statute, according to Jon Taylor, the head of the Utah-based Consumer Awareness Institute. … Taylor says he thinks Huntsman is a good man, but that the MLM industry is awash in money and has outsized political influence. Utah has the dubious distinction, he notes, of serving as home to more MLM companies per capita than anywhere else in the country.
The Dish 