PEPSICO FILES SUIT VS. COKE; COLA CONFLICT SPILLS INTO THE COURTROOM.Byline: Constance L. Hayes The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times In a major escalation of the cola wars  An editor has expressed concern that this article or section is .Please help improve the article by adding information and sources on neglected viewpoints, or by summarizing and , Pepsico Inc. sued the Coca-Cola Co. on Thursday, accusing its archrival arch·ri·val n. A principal rival. of unfairly controlling the beverages served by restaurants and other businesses. At issue is Coke's dominance of what is known as the fountain business, which includes restaurant chains The following is a list of restaurant chains. See also: Fast-food restaurant, Casual dining, List of reference tables. International
The entire fountain business accounted for some 22 percent of the 9.6 billion cases of soda sold in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. last year, and has been the fastest-growing part of the soft-drink industry over the past decade. Pepsico's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, contended that Coke, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890, first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts; it was named for Senator John Sherman. Prior to its enactment, various states had passed similar laws, but they were limited to intrastate businesses. , unfairly pressured independent food-service distributors, who supply the majority of the fountain business, to carry only Coke products by threatening to cut off their supply if they provided Pepsi to any of their clients. Such distributors are often local or regional, and supply everything from ketchup to paper napkins for large and midsize businesses. ``We don't think the suit has any merit,'' a Coke spokesman, Rob Baskin, said late Thursday. ``Secondly, every aspect of the soft-drink business is highly competitive. Thirdly, this suit seems as if Pepsi would prefer to fight in the courts rather than the marketplace.'' Pepsi contends that as it slowly began to build more clients in the fountain business last year, Coke aggressively tried to curtail its competitor. The lawsuit seeks to force Coca-Cola to halt all such practices and asks for an unspecified amount in damages. |
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