Analyzing Price Gouging Under the Federal Defense Production Act

This spring, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump issued Executive Order 13910 to prevent the hoarding of health and medical resources necessary to respond to the pandemic in the U.S. Issued on March 23, the executive order delegated this duty to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), authority under section 102 of the Defense Production Act (DPA). To effectuate the executive order, HHS published a notice on March 30 in which it designated specific categories of medical and health resources as “scarce” or “threatened” within the meaning of the DPA. The equipment deemed scarce or threatened in the notice includes: