New York State sues three gasoline retailers for price gouging
>>>Its starting. I wonder how many of you saw the front page WSJ article today about Hugo Chavez nationalizing oil assets. We do the same thing here, only by a different process. The silly US government is just one of the myriad factors to weigh in investment management. With the election coming, I highly recommend paying close attention to this one. Of course in the long run, this sort of behavior only pushes prices higher, but Joe Six Pack feels all warm inside knowing that there has been a crucifixion or two while he shells out $100 to fill his tank.<<<
New York (Platts)--24Apr2006
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer Monday announced that price gouging lawsuits have been filed against three service stations in the state.
Spitzer, who is considered the front runner for the Democratic nomination for governor, said in a statement that the lawsuits were part of "an ongoing probe of high gasoline prices after Hurricane Katrina."
The lawsuits accuse the three gasoline stations of charging consumers "unconscionably excessive prices in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina last fall," said the statement. Spitzer's office has previously settled related price gouging charges with 15 gasoline stations.
"The lawsuits we are filing today continue my office's effort to ensure that during market disruptions gas pricing decisions are proportionate to increased costs," Spitzer said in the statement.
"As part of that effort, we continue to believe that the state needs a clearer and stronger statute to deter price gouging and I urge the State Legislature to act on the bill we have proposed."
Spitzer meanwhile called upon the Federal Trade Commission to "aggressively pursue its ongoing investigation of gasoline pricing, market manipulation, and price gouging."
Congress has directed the FTC to probe oil and gas prices both leading up to Hurricane Katrina and after the storm disrupted the US supply chain, and to determine whether the prices can be attributed to the exercise of unlawful market power by oil companies, Spitzer noted.
"With regular gasoline selling at $4.14 a gallon at a station in Brooklyn this week, it is essential that the FTC focuses not only on the merit of price gouging statutes that deal with events such as Katrina, but also on the causes behind the dramatic price increases we're experiencing all these months later," he said.
"While we need federal and state price gouging laws to protect consumers when disaster strikes, we also need to police oil company behavior during periods of unprecedented prices and profits."
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