News America Marketing Issues Statement Following Jury Finding in Valassis Trial
Company is disappointed with decision, but remains confident it will prevail in appeal.
New York, NY (July 23, 2009) -- Chris Mixson, President of News America Marketing, issued the following statement following today’s jury finding in Valassis v. News America Marketing:
We are disappointed with today’s 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 court’s 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 available—a consequence that would be extremely unfortunate in this economy.
Given the court’s 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.
News America Marketing®, a division of News Corporation, is the leading single-source provider of consumer marketing services. The company’s product portfolio, marketed under the SmartSource® brand name, consists of the first branded free-standing insert, known as SmartSource Magazine®, various in-store marketing products, merchandising services, database marketing tools and online promotions. These products and services allow marketers to deliver a brand message to over 200 million consumers each month via a network of 1,500 newspapers and over 50,000 supermarket, drug, mass merchandise, dollar, and office supply-store locations across the country, including Kroger, SuperValu, Safeway, Publix, Food Lion, CVS, Rite Aid Walgreens, and Family Dollar.
News America Marketing’s diverse portfolio of consumer-marketing programs includes:
IN-STORE MEDIA
SmartSource® At-Shelf Sampling SmartSource CartsSM SmartSource Coupon Machine® SmartSource Floortalk® SmartSource Price Pop GuaranteedSM SmartSource Shelftake One® SmartSource ShelftalkSM SmartSource Shelftalk Banner®
SmartSource Shelfvision VideoSM SmartSource Showcase®
SmartSource SmartSamplingSM
HOME-DELIVERED MEDIA
SmartSource Magazine®
SmartSource Custom Media
Direct Response Advertising
Partnerships Themed Events
ONLINE MEDIA
SmartSource Online
www.smartsource.com
TRADE MARKETING
SmartSource Price Feature PlusSM
DATABASE MARKETING
SmartSource Direct®
MERCHANDISING SERVICES
News America Marketing—International provides consumer-marketing services in Canada, Australia and New Zealand; in addition, we have a network of advertising and promotion partners in Asia, Europe, South America and Africa.
News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) had total assets as of March 31, 2009 of approximately US$52 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$31 billion. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers and information services; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.
Contact: News America Marketing
Rita Meyer
212.782.8162
rmeyer@newsamerica.com
Rubenstein Associates Public Relations
Kathleen Blomquist
212.843.8065
kblomquist@rubenstein.com
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