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VNU Claims Antitrust Milestone
VNU is claiming an important win for its ACNielsen business unit in the antitrust lawsuit filed by Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) in 1996. The case continues but VNU described the suit as 'seriously impaired' by the judgement.
The suit includes claims that ACNielsen unlawfully priced certain customer contracts below cost and 'bundled' contracts by offering discounts in countries where it faced no competition on the condition customers also bought from it in competitive markets.
In an order issued on Friday, the Court ruled that IRI's expert report on liability and damages could not be presented at trial because it relied on an economic analysis which has been deemed inadmissible as a matter of law. Specifically, the Court ruled that IRI must prove that ACNielsen's pricing practices or discounts involved prices below short-run average variable cost, calculated without the inclusion of certain costs designated by ACNielsen as 'Fixed Operations' costs - the latter were not deemed to have been removed in the IRI analysis.
VNU says that 'While there will be further proceedings on this and other issues in the case', it believes that the news 'seriously impairs IRI's antitrust claims', which VNU believes to be wholly without merit. The two companies' web sites are at www.vnu.com and www.infores.com
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