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
Price Gouging
Upcoming Price Gouging and Employee/HR Data Privacy Webinars
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…
Formula Price Gouging
Recently Georgia Attorney General Carr warned consumers of potential price gouging of baby formula and related scams. He notes price gouging protections are in effect there until at least June 14, 2022 due to a state of emergency caused by supply chain disruptions. Attorney General Carr also noted problems with inflation and gas prices.
Later…
Ad Law Access Podcast: Price Gouging
As 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
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Price Gouging Enforcement Escalates At Federal and State Levels
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
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Retailers Should Keep Price Gouging Laws in Mind
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…
Coronavirus Advertising-Related Enforcement is Ongoing
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…
Read This Before You Market Around Coronavirus
Until 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…