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3M files lawsuit in Canada against firm accused of price-gouging on N95 masks
WASHINGTON — Minnesota-based 3M has filed a lawsuit against an Ontario company that allegedly claimed a phoney affiliation with the U.S. medical-gear maker to sell hard-to-find N95 face masks at exorbitant prices.
The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court, alleges that Caonic Systems Inc. set up a web domain on the e-commerce platform Shopify and used it to sell masks that it claimed had been made by 3M in Singapore and the United Kingdom.
It further alleges that the company continued to market the masks on different Shopify-based sites after 3M complained, with an asking price of $17 apiece — five times the suggested retail price.
3M, which was at the centre of a short-lived dispute with the White House over its long-standing export agreements with Canada and Mexico for personal protective equipment, has been aggressively cracking down on price-gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic ever since.