1. (1) Abnormal disruption of the market, abnormal disruption, or disruption mean any change in the market for an essential product, whether actual or imminently threatened, resulting from a triggering event.

2. (2) Triggering event means one or more of the events listed in General Business Law § 396-r(2)(b), namely:

   1. (i) stress of weather;
   2. (ii) convulsion of nature;
   3. (iii) failure or shortage of electric power or other source of energy;
   4. (iv) strike;
   5. (v) civil disorder;
   6. (vi) war;
   7. (vii) military action;
   8. (viii) national or local emergency;
   9. (ix) drug shortage; or
   10. (x) other cause of an abnormal disruption of the market which results in the declaration of a state of emergency by the Governor.
3. (3) Drug shortage means, with respect to any drug or medical product intended for human use, that such drug or medical product is publicly reported as being subject to a shortage by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 356c or any other provision of federal law.
4. (b) Benchmark sale means a sale or offering for sale whose price is used as a basis to conclude that the price in the scrutinized sale is prima facie proof of a violation of General Business Law § 396-r pursuant to General Business Law § 396-r(3)(b)(i) or General Business Law § 396-r(3)(b)(ii).
5. (c) Buyer means the person to whom the scrutinized sale or offer for sale is made. References to any particular buyer include any entities controlled by the buyer (or entities controlled by the same person as the buyer), and any successor in interest to that buyer.
6. (d) Consumer means an individual or small business.
7. (e) Essential products means goods or services a reasonable person in the buyer’s position at the time of the sale would believe are vital and necessary for the health, safety, and welfare of consumers or the general public.
8. (f) Goods and services means consumer goods and services used, bought or rendered primarily for personal, family or household purposes; essential medical supplies and services used for the care, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of any illness or disease; any other essential goods and services used to promote the health or welfare of the public; and any repairs made by any party within the chain of distribution of goods on an emergency basis as a result of an abnormal market disruption.
9. (g) New essential product means an essential product that did not exist prior to an abnormal disruption of the market for that new essential product.
10. (h) Pre-disruption price means the price at which the goods or services at issue in the scrutinized sale were sold or offered for sale by the defendant in the usual course of business immediately prior to the abnormal disruption of the market.
11. (i) Price means the maximum total of all fees or charges a buyer must pay for an essential product, including but not limited to any mandatory additional goods or services offered to a buyer as part of the same transaction, but excluding taxes, tolls, or fees imposed on the sale (or prospective sale) by a Federal, State, or local government.
12. (j) Price gouging statute, without additional context, means General Business Law § 396-r.
13. (k) Sale, without additional context, means a sale and offering for sale. A seller that contracts or offers to contract with a buyer to sell multiple goods (or a volume of fungible goods) on multiple dates or in multiple locations, whether for a fixed or variable price, engages in a separate sale or offer for sale on each such date or location. The sale or offering for sale of a good or service by one party to another where both buyer and seller are under common ownership or control, or where the sale or offering for sale is not an arms-length transaction, does not constitute a sale or offering for sale.
14. (l) Scrutinized sale means the sale or offering for sale made during an abnormal disruption of the market being examined for compliance with the price gouging statute.
15. (m) Seller means the party making the scrutinized sale, including a subsidiary, parent company, affiliate, agent, or representative thereof.
16. (n) Small business means a person other than an individual that is independently owned and operated, not dominant in its field, and employs 100 or fewer persons.
17. (o) Third party means a person not owned or controlled by a seller.

18. (p) Methods or practices used or prices charged in the usual course of business means methods employed or prices charged as part of the seller’s normal routine. A method, practice, or price:

    1. (1) implemented when a seller knew or had reason to know a disruption would occur;
    2. (2) implemented prior to a disruption that has the purpose or effect of altering prices during a disruption; or
    3. (3) that a reasonable person would conclude was implemented for the sole or dominant purpose of enabling the seller to increase prices or alter the seller’s accounting of costs or profits during a disruption or immediately prior to a disruption, is not a method or practice used in the usual course of business.

For the purposes of this Part:

(a)