Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 20, 1991 TAG: 9102200102
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
More claims are expected to be filed before the Feb. 26 deadline in the class action, Washington lawyer Leonard Egan said Tuesday. He is acting for plaintiffs in the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
Merchants are eligible to file claims if they bought soft drinks between 1977 and 1987 directly from Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Roanoke or General Cinema Beverages of Virginia, a Pepsi-Cola bottler. Eligible retailers are in the area from Roanoke to Christiansburg, Covington to Stuart.
Egan represents G. Clarence Hartman, former owner of a Daleville grocery store and plaintiff in the case. Hartman's suit, filed on behalf of other customers, claims the two bottlers fixed prices during the 10-year period.
At a hearing Friday, Judge Jackson Kiser will determine whether the proposed settlement agreement is fair, adequate and reasonable.
The two companies agreed in November to pay $1 million into an interest-bearing escrow account.
The suit came two years after an executive and two employees of Roanoke Coca-Cola pleaded no contest to criminal charges that they bilked thousands of dollars from soft-drink customers with a price-fixing scheme. They were fined and placed on probation for conspiring with Pepsi-Cola officials to increase prices but not undercut one another. Pepsi-Cola officials were given immunity for cooperating with government investigators.
by CNB