Compliance Alert: COVID-19-Related “Hoarding and Profiteering” are Now Federal Offenses
The White House has issued Executive Order 13910, which criminalizes hoarding and price gouging involving ventilators, face masks, gloves, and other items hospitals need to deal with the COVID-19 emergency.
The President has the authority to designate “scarce materials” under part of the Defense Production Act of 1950. The law’s two purposes are to prevent anyone from accumulating the designated materials in “excess of the reasonable demands of business, personal, or home consumption,” or accumulating them “for the purpose of resale at prices in excess of prevailing market prices.”
