In 1999, when Mitt Romney was put in charge of organizing the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, there was an unusual company among those angling to be Olympic sponsors. Along with the Coca-Colas and the McDonalds, there was a company called Nu Skin, based in Provo, Utah, that sold anti-aging products and nutritional supplements. Its distribution network is what is called, in the industry, multilevel marketing. Critics have another name for that kind of business: a pyramid scheme.

Nu Skin, which was founded in 1984, had already had a number of run-ins with the law. In 1991, after an exposé on ABC News’s “Nightline,” a handful of attorneys general accused it of violating laws that are supposed to prevent pyramid schemes. The company made some minor fiddles with its practices and settled the complaints.

Then it was accused by the Federal Trade Commission of making unsupported claims about a handful of its products, including a wrinkle cream (“can roll 10 years off”) and “a skin treatment that claimed to heal third-degree burns,” according to an article by Peter Elkind in the latest issue of Fortune Magazine. It settled in 1994 for $1.2 million.

Three years later, the F.T.C. was back again, levying a $1.5 million fine against Nu Skin “for making false claims about its weight-loss products,” writes Elkind (who is, for the record, a friend and former colleague). Despite these blemishes, Nu Skin sought, just a few years later, to become an Olympic sponsor — a $20 million investment that would allow it to slap the Olympic rings on its products.