AKT Fitness Lawsuit: Kaiser, Franchisees, and Brand Shutdown

The AKT fitness lawsuits began in 2020 when founder Anna Kaiser sued Xponential Fitness over the 2018 sale of her dance-fitness brand, and Xponential countersued the same week. That dispute settled in 2022, but AKT franchisees filed their own suit in 2023, and by 2026 Xponential had paid nearly $40 million to resolve federal and state regulatory actions and a franchisee class settlement that named AKT among the affected brands. The AKT brand itself was wound down by 2025.

What Anna Kaiser Sued Xponential Over

Kaiser sold the intellectual property of her Anna Kaiser Technique brand to AKT Franchise, LLC, an Xponential entity, in March 2018. The deal was $2.15 million in cash, another $850,000 payable in three post-closing installments, and equity in Xponential’s parent. Kaiser also signed a consulting agreement and licensed her personal brand to the company.¹²

On August 3, 2020, Kaiser and her company, Get Kaisered Inc., sued Xponential Fitness and AKT Franchise in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The complaint said Xponential had breached the asset purchase agreement by failing to pay the post-closing installments and had breached the consulting agreement by not paying her monthly fees and documented expenses.² Kaiser also alleged that Xponential CEO Anthony Geisler had disparaged her to franchisees on video calls and shut her out of decisions about the brand. She claimed the company had projected more than 150 studio openings in 2019; by fall 2020 only eight AKT studios were open.¹

Three days later Xponential filed its own suit, accusing Kaiser of a “campaign of disruption” it called “willful, wanton, malicious and oppressive.” Its core claim was that Kaiser had violated her non-compete by rebranding two of her original studios as “Anna Kaiser Studios,” competing with the brand she had sold.¹

How the Third Circuit Read the Contract

Both sides asked the district court for preliminary injunctions and both were denied. AKT Franchise wanted Kaiser forced to run her studios as AKT franchises and barred from using the “Anna Kaiser Studios” name; Kaiser wanted relief from what she described as Xponential’s breaches. The court found neither party had shown a likelihood of success on the merits.³

AKT Franchise appealed. On August 10, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. On the franchise-conversion question, the panel held the asset purchase agreement did not require Kaiser to convert her studios into AKT franchises immediately. The relevant clause gave her a three-year window to use “commercially reasonable efforts” to sign franchise agreements, which the court treated as a condition precedent rather than an instant obligation. On the non-compete question, the court found Kaiser’s four original studios were defined in the contract as “Seller Studios” and expressly carved out from the non-compete, so rebranding them as “Anna Kaiser Studios” did not turn them into competing businesses under the agreement.³⁴

The parties resolved all claims through a settlement agreement executed on February 8, 2022. The terms were not publicly disclosed.⁵

The Franchisee Lawsuit

Kaiser was not the only party unhappy with how AKT was being run. In 2023 a group of AKT franchisees sued in Dance Fitness Michigan, LLC v. AKT Franchise, LLC, filed in Orange County Superior Court and removed to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in September 2023. Plaintiffs included more than a dozen entities and individuals. One of them, Deanna Alfredo, had previously told Franchise Times that the “AKT” name was essentially meaningless to potential customers and lacked the brand recognition to draw business in markets like suburban Detroit.⁶¹

The case moved fast. AKT Franchise moved to compel arbitration, then withdrew that motion in October 2023. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, and AKT Franchise filed counterclaims against several franchisees in November 2023. The docket shows the case terminated on December 19, 2023. The specific resolution, whether settlement or dismissal, is not reflected in the public record.⁶

AKT in the Xponential Regulatory Settlements

The AKT disputes turned out to be an early indicator of problems across Xponential’s franchise portfolio, and several later regulatory actions swept AKT franchisees in with those of other Xponential brands.

The FTC Case

On March 18, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission filed and simultaneously settled a complaint against Xponential alleging violations of the FTC Act and the Franchise Rule. AKT Franchise, LLC was named as a defendant. The FTC accused the company of claiming studios would typically open within six months when it generally took more than a year, failing to disclose that Geisler had been “repeatedly sued for fraud,” misreporting contact information for former franchisees, and failing to deliver the required Franchise Disclosure Document at least 14 days before franchisees signed or paid.⁷

The settlement required Xponential to pay $17 million in restitution to affected franchisees, which the FTC called the largest amount ever returned to consumers in a franchise case. Xponential did not admit or deny the allegations.⁸⁹

The Franchisee Class Settlement

Separately, Xponential reached a $22.75 million settlement with more than 500 current and former franchisees who alleged they had been misled when buying their franchises. That works out to roughly $45,000 per complainant, paid over 35 months. Combined with the FTC payment, Xponential’s resolution costs reached $39.75 million, disclosed in its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings release. The company described the settlements as an effort to “wipe the slate clean” and made no admission of liability.¹⁰¹¹

State Actions

Several state regulators pursued Xponential over the same disclosure practices, and Maryland’s order applied to all brands including AKT.

Washington State, August 2025: The Department of Financial Institutions entered a consent order finding Xponential’s FDDs had failed to disclose Geisler as a person with management responsibilities and had omitted his litigation history from roughly 2017 through 2024. The order also found the FDDs misrepresented the time and cost to open studios. Xponential was ordered to cease and desist and pay $5,400 in costs, without admitting or denying the findings.¹²
Maryland, April 2026: The Maryland Securities Commissioner entered a consent order covering all Xponential brands, AKT included. The state found FDDs claimed studios opened in three to six months when the actual average across all brands was 12 months. Xponential paid a $75,000 civil penalty and agreed to offer franchise terminations and fee refunds to certain Maryland franchisees with unopened studios.¹³
New York, June 2026: The New York Attorney General secured a $3,971,250 settlement, finding Xponential had filed roughly 33 FDDs between 2020 and 2024 claiming three-to-six-month opening timelines when studios actually took an average of more than 13 months. The settlement covers 95 New York franchisees: $3 million goes to 70 who experienced delays, and roughly $971,000 to 25 who never opened. Xponential was also required to hire an independent franchise attorney for three years to review its disclosures.¹⁴

A common thread ran through these actions: the gap between what Xponential told franchisees and what it told investors. The New York AG noted that while FDDs promised three-to-six-month openings, Xponential told the SEC its actual averages were 12.2 months in 2022, 10.5 months in 2023, and 15 months in 2024.¹⁴

What Happened to the AKT Brand

Through all of this, the AKT franchise concept never gained traction. The brand had just eight operating studios as of mid-2024, the same number Kaiser cited four years earlier when she accused Xponential of botching the rollout. In late 2023, Xponential announced a partnership with Julianne Hough’s Kinrgy platform to rebrand up to three AKT locations, but that plan was later scrapped.¹⁵¹⁶

Xponential began winding down AKT in 2024, and management said the closure would have no material financial impact on the company.¹⁶ By 2025, AKT was no longer on Xponential’s list of active brands, which had been trimmed to six: Club Pilates, StretchLab, YogaSix, Pure Barre, BFT, and Lindora.¹⁷ The brand Kaiser built and sold for roughly $3 million had been quietly dissolved.¹⁸

1
Franchise Times. AKT Founder Anna Kaiser Sues Xponential Fitness and Vice Versa
2
Scribd. Get Kaisered v AKT Franchise, Doc 1
3
Midpage. Get Kaisered Inc v. AKT Franchise LLC
4
Law360. Celebrity Trainer Keeps Franchise Suit Win at 3rd Circ
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Xponential Fitness Investor Relations. Xponential Fitness SEC Filing
6
CourtListener. Dance Fitness Michigan, LLC v. AKT Franchise, LLC
7
FTC. Protecting Franchisees: FTCs Case Against Xponential Fitness
8
FTC. FTC Cases and Proceedings – Xponential Fitness
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FTC. FTC Secures Settlement Against Xponential Fitness for Franchise Rule Violations
10
Athletech News. Xponential Fitness Agrees to Pay Nearly $40 Million in Settlements
11
Health Club Management. Xponential Fitness Settles Lawsuits Out of Court
12
Washington State DFI. Consent Order S-24-3786-25-CO01
13
Office of the Attorney General of Maryland. Consent Order, Case No. 2024-0140
14
New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Secures More Than $3.9 Million From Xponential Fitness for Misleading Franchisees
15
Xponential Fitness Investor Relations. Xponential Fitness Inc Partners With Kinrgy to Transform AKT Studios
16
Athletech News. Xponential Fitness Feels Effects of Investigation, CEO Change
17
Xponential Fitness Investor Relations. Xponential Fitness Inc Announces Second Quarter 2025 Results
18
Franchise Times. Big Shifts Coming at Xponential Fitness Under New CEO as Sales Slow