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This IMO, is why the majority of the public thinks this entire episode with skyrocketing gas prices, is nothing but a contrieved deal between the big oil companies and the government..
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Missouri loses suit over low gas price
By Ben Hallman
Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau
03/30/2004
JEFFERSON CITY - If you sell gasoline too cheap in Missouri, the attorney general may take you to court -- but he might lose.
The state sued a QuikTrip in Herculaneum for allegedly selling gas below wholesale prices for 23 days in 1999, claiming the retailer had violated a Missouri law that makes it illegal to sell gas below cost if the intent or effect is to "injure competition."
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against the state Tuesday in a decision that will save the gas and snack store about $75,000 in fines.
State law bars retailers from selling gasoline below cost. The rationale: Discounted prices could force competitors out of business, leaving a monopoly oil company free to dictate prices.
The state also must prove that selling gas below cost somehow "injured" competitors. This claim, Judge Michael A. Wolff wrote in the majority decision, was not supported by the facts of the case.
"The state has not demonstrated that QuikTrip's occasional below-cost sales had an adverse effect on (its) competitors."
Not one of 11 competing gas stations, the court found, went out of business in a three-year span from 1997 and 1999.
The ruling comes as gas prices in Missouri are at near-record levels. The average price of regular self-service gas in St. Louis was $1.708 a gallon on Monday, according to a survey of 13 stations by AAA Missouri.
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Missouri loses suit over low gas price
By Ben Hallman
Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau
03/30/2004
JEFFERSON CITY - If you sell gasoline too cheap in Missouri, the attorney general may take you to court -- but he might lose.
The state sued a QuikTrip in Herculaneum for allegedly selling gas below wholesale prices for 23 days in 1999, claiming the retailer had violated a Missouri law that makes it illegal to sell gas below cost if the intent or effect is to "injure competition."
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against the state Tuesday in a decision that will save the gas and snack store about $75,000 in fines.
State law bars retailers from selling gasoline below cost. The rationale: Discounted prices could force competitors out of business, leaving a monopoly oil company free to dictate prices.
The state also must prove that selling gas below cost somehow "injured" competitors. This claim, Judge Michael A. Wolff wrote in the majority decision, was not supported by the facts of the case.
"The state has not demonstrated that QuikTrip's occasional below-cost sales had an adverse effect on (its) competitors."
Not one of 11 competing gas stations, the court found, went out of business in a three-year span from 1997 and 1999.
The ruling comes as gas prices in Missouri are at near-record levels. The average price of regular self-service gas in St. Louis was $1.708 a gallon on Monday, according to a survey of 13 stations by AAA Missouri.
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