WASHINGTON – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has signed an agreement that should ensure enforcement of its menu-labeling rule will begin in May 2018.

After subsequent extensions, on December 30, 2016, FDA published a final rule that set the compliance day for May 5, 2017. Then, on May 4, 2017, FDA published an interim final rule extending the menu-labeling rule’s compliance deadline until May 7, 2018, which became subject to litigation by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the National Consumers League on the grounds that the interim final rule violated administrative procedure regulations, writes MediaPost.com.

On August 25, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that the agency will provide additional guidance on the menu-labeling requirements by the end of this year, and suggested that there will be no more enforcement delays or changes to the final rule. 

Per CSPI, the agreement provides that the lawsuit challenging the delay will proceed only if the FDA announces an additional delay of enforcement or fails to issue guidance to industry by the end of 2017.