Last month, we discussed the broad authority that State Attorneys General have in enforcing price gouging laws – many of which remain in effect given the number of states that are still under some state of emergency.  We noted the significant expansion in recent AG enforcement, and observed that at least two courts had pushed back on these efforts, dismissing cases brought by the Texas and New York Attorneys General.  Just a short month later however, both cases have now been reinstated by appellate courts, again raising the prospects that AGs will continue to push the boundaries in price gouging enforcement, especially while consumers are struggling to deal with high prices due to labor shortages and inflation.
Continue Reading State Attorney General Price Gouging Claims Find New Life

How To Protect Employee/HR Data and Comply with Data Privacy Laws
Wednesday, July 20

As workforces become increasingly mobile and remote work is more the norm, employers face the challenge of balancing the protection of their employees’ personal data and privacy against the need to collect and process personal data to recruit, support and monitor

Ad Law Access PodcastAs COVID-19 continues to dominant the news and the effects sweep across the country and globe, one of the important issues that directly affects companies and consumers alike is price gouging. In fact, the AGs in 32 states sent a letter to online retail platforms (Amazon, eBay, Craigslist and others) urging them to do more

As a follow-up to our recent posts on price gouging (see here, here, and here), we noted recent signs that federal and state authorities have escalated their enforcement efforts.

  • On Monday, the President signed an executive order to prevent hoarding and price gouging of crucial medical supplies.  It authorizes criminal prosecution of

If you’ve been shopping lately, it’s likely that you’ve encountered empty shelves and shortages of items, such as (for inexplicable reasons) toilet paper. This tends to happen whenever a disaster – whether that’s a hurricane or COVID-19 – strikes. In some cases, retailers respond to these shortages by increasing prices. Although there may be legitimate

This post updates an earlier post relating to marketing around the coronavirus.

We noted a couple news items this week that help add context to the pervasiveness of and risks related to price gouging enforcement.  In this story, the New York Times reported on a merchant who was selling hand sanitizer and related protective

Before You Market Around CoronavirusUntil recently, most consumers likely associated anything starting with “Corona” with a sunny beach and a lime wedge.

Not anymore.

The public is rightly concerned about coronavirus and how to avoid catching it.  And where the public has questions, marketers will have answers.  Here are a couple things to think about before rushing that next