Profiteering (business)

Profiteering (business)

Profiteering is a pejorative term for the act of making a profit by methods considered unethical.

Business owners may be accused of profiteering when they raise prices during an emergency (especially a war). The term is also applied to businesses that play on political corruption to obtain government contracts. Some businesses don't actually gouge the prices of their own goods; they might buy out an entire stock of something, only to resell it at an absurdly higher price.

Some types of profiteering are illegal, such as price fixing syndicates and other anti-competitive behaviour, for example on fuel subsidies (see British Airways price-fixing allegations), or restricted by industry codes of conduct such as aggressive marketing of products in the third world such as baby milk (see Nestlé boycott).

Contents

Types of profiteering

Laws

See also

Example cases