Anthony Argiropoulos, Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Health Care & Life Sciences practices and Co-Chair of the firm’s National Litigation Steering Committee, in the firm’s Princeton office, was quoted in Bloomberg, in “More Than 750,000 Masks Auctioned for Huge Markup in Texas While Hospitals Run Out Nationwide,” by Polly Mosendz and William Turton.
Following is an excerpt:
At a time when shortages of protective gear are putting health-care workers at risk, more than 750,000 medical-grade masks went up for online auction in Texas.
Bottles of Purell sold for over $40. A box of 16 masks went for $170. They could be had retail for $3 each before the coronavirus.
The week-long bidding that ended Tuesday was hosted by the website Auctions Unlimited. The health-related products pulled in $154,000 in sales, according to Houston-based website owner Tim Worstell. He estimated that he personally made as much as $40,000 on the sales. …
Each state has its own laws governing price gouging. In Texas, it’s illegal to sell medicine, among other things, for “an exorbitant or excessive price” during a state of emergency. The civil penalty is as much as $10,000 per violation -- more if the victim is over 65 years old.
“The states are really policing it,” said Anthony Argiropoulos, head of the price-gouging response team at the Epstein Becker & Green law firm in Princeton, New Jersey. “Price gouging is usually pretty obvious.”
