Business News
News America Marketing Statement on Valassis v. NAM
Friday 24. July 2009 - Chris Mixson, President of News America Marketing, issued the following statement following todays jury finding in Valassis v. News America Marketing:
We are disappointed with todays decision, which rewards a company that turned to litigation as its business strategy rather than compete. Although we are sure that the Michigan state court jury did their best to reach a fair conclusion, we recognize that they were hampered by the courts decision not to allow a key piece of information to be introduced: the legal analysis by the Federal Trade Commission that Valassis had made “an effort to induce collusion” when it announced its new pricing policy in a public investor call. This information would have shown that this lawsuit was merely part of a larger strategy to get News America Marketing to raise its prices, a move that would have affected both our clients and their consumers by reducing the number of coupons availablea consequence that would be extremely unfortunate in this economy.
Given the courts ruling on this point and the outcome today, we will appeal this decision and are confident that we will prevail. In the meantime, News America Marketing remains strong and continues to provide the best service, products and results to our clients.