SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- William Fleischli, executive vice president of the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association/Illinois Association of Convenience Stores, said its members are "fine" with making a $1,000 donation to the American Red Cross to settle price-gouging allegations by state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, reported the Associated Press.
But Fleischli said station owners are not willing to say they illegally raised prices following Hurricane Katrina. They merely passed along steep wholesale prices after the hurricane.
Madigan [image-nocss] had given 18 stations until late last week to make the donation and admission or face a possible lawsuit. Madigan's office is not saying how manyif anyof the stations have complied with her demands. But spokesperson Melissa Merz said Madigan will decide within a week what action to take against those that do not.
A report in the Chicago Sun-Times added that several station operators appeared ready for a legal fight over admitting any wrongdoing.
In late December, as reported in CSP Daily News, Madigan accused 18 station operators of price-gouging after Katrina struck Gulf Coast refineries. She gave the stations until Thursday to promise they would donate $1,000 to the Red Cross and acknowledge they had violated state consumer-protection laws by hitting motorists with steep price hikes.
"Some may write a check in good faith and good will. That's not the stumbling block," Fleischli told the newspaper. "The stumbling block is in the compliance document that says prices were illegally raised immediately after Hurricane Katrina. The lawyers I talked to can't find anything in the statutes to suggest anything was done illegally."
Merz told the Sun-Times, "We have alleged that these gas stations have in the wake of Hurricane Katrina charged Illinois consumers higher prices that were not attributable to higher wholesale costs paid by the stations. We have provided these gas stations with an opportunity to settleshort of lengthy and expensive litigationwhat we believe to be unfair conduct in the wake of this terrible disaster."
She added, "We're hopeful these stations will do the right thing and cooperate with the attorney general. We will decide within the next week as to what action to take against those stations who fail to cooperate."
Fleischli would not release the names of his organization's members who have been targeted by Madigan, but described many of them as "mom-and-pop" operations that could be driven out of business if they are sued by the state. "This is terrorizing to every one of my membersnot because of the allegations," he said. "It's terrorizing because of the expense involved."
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