---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 6 AND 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO CONSUMER PROTECTION."
description: "This Act clarifies the Attorney General’s existing authority to enforce the State’s consumer protection laws, specifically the Attorney General’s ability to pursue non-penalty civil remedies, such as damages and restitution, without having to show that a person’s violation of a law or regulation enforced by the Department of Justice’s Division of Consumer Protection was wilful. This Act does not change the requirement that the Attorney General show that such a violation was wilful in order to obtain civil penalties from a court or hearing officer. Every other state that has a similar state of mind requirement in their consumer fraud law does not impose that state of mind requirement for non-penalty civil remedies. By harmonizing the language in the Consumer Fraud Act (Subchapter II, Chapter 25, Title 6 of the Code) and the Division of Consumer Protection’s enabling statute (Subchapter II, Chapter 25, Title 29 of the Code), this Act clarifies that Delaware is line with the other states."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "152"
identifier: "SB 256"
citation: "Delaware SB 256 (152)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["David L. Wilson", "David P. Sokola", "Edward S. Osienski", "Kyle Evans Gay", "Nicole Poore", "Paul S. Baumbach", "Russell Huxtable", "S. Elizabeth Lockman", "William Bush"]
version_count: 2
action_count: 9
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2024-03-21"
last_action: "2024-09-26"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/47b0d4e5-9d93-4750-a297-43ab85a0adf7"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=141127"
source_hash: "5e12be2ea4c04c8aef304f181d6f8b45c5834afff929302f793c9cc2f619ec26"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware SB 256 (152) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 6 AND 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO CONSUMER PROTECTION.

This Act clarifies the Attorney General’s existing authority to enforce the State’s consumer protection laws, specifically the Attorney General’s ability to pursue non-penalty civil remedies, such as damages and restitution, without having to show that a person’s violation of a law or regulation enforced by the Department of Justice’s Division of Consumer Protection was wilful. This Act does not change the requirement that the Attorney General show that such a violation was wilful in order to obtain civil penalties from a court or hearing officer. Every other state that has a similar state of mind requirement in their consumer fraud law does not impose that state of mind requirement for non-penalty civil remedies. By harmonizing the language in the Consumer Fraud Act (Subchapter II, Chapter 25, Title 6 of the Code) and the Division of Consumer Protection’s enabling statute (Subchapter II, Chapter 25, Title 29 of the Code), this Act clarifies that Delaware is line with the other states.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=141127&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SB256)
2. **SA 1 to SB 256** (committee substitute) — [source](http://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GeneratePdfDocument?legislationId=141552&legislationTypeId=5&docTypeId=2)

## Votes

- SM — **21–0** (pass) · upper
- SM — **37–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- David L. Wilson — primary (person)
- David P. Sokola — primary (person)
- Edward S. Osienski — primary (person)
- Kyle Evans Gay — primary (person)
- Nicole Poore — primary (person)
- Paul S. Baumbach — primary (person)
- Russell Huxtable — primary (person)
- S. Elizabeth Lockman — primary (person)
- William Bush — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2024-03-21** Introduced and Assigned to Judiciary Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2024-04-17** Reported Out of Committee (Judiciary) in Senate with 4 Favorable, 1 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2024-06-11** Amendment SA 1 to SB 256 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2024-06-11** Amendment SA 1 to SB 256 - Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `amendment-passage`
- **2024-06-11** Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `passage`
- **2024-06-12** Assigned to Economic Development/Banking/Insurance & Commerce Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2024-06-18** Reported Out of Committee (Economic Development/Banking/Insurance & Commerce) in House with 7 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2024-06-26** Passed By House. Votes: 37 YES 4 ABSENT `passage`
- **2024-09-26** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/47b0d4e5-9d93-4750-a297-43ab85a0adf7`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).