Fifteen New York gas stations will pay fines totaling $63,500 to settle charges they gouged prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the office of state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said Monday.
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The 15 stations all raised their mark-up on retail gas prices by at least 25 percent after Katrina hit Aug. 29, Spitzer’s office said. One station tripled its mark-up, the different between its cost and the retail price.
Spitzer also called on state legislators to amend price-gouging laws to further define “gross disparity,” the concept of large price differences after a market disruption from the previous prices that can not be explained away by higher costs.
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Attorneys general across the country have investigated price-gouging complaints on a range of services, mostly gasoline retail, in the wake of Katrina. The storm severely disrupted the nation’s fuel supply, leading to shortages in some Southern states in particular.
Last month Amerada Hess Corp. settled a post-Katrina pricing suit with the state of New Jersey, after it violated a statute that prohibits gasoline sellers from raising prices more than once in a single day.














