
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 5, 1994                   TAG: 9410050096
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AUTOZONE WON'T PUT DISK IN DRIVE CHAIN SETTLES WITH ADVANCE, SAYS IT WON'T US

AutoZone Inc. may be trying to muscle in on Advance Auto Parts' home turf in the Roanoke Valley, but the Memphis, Tenn., company won't benefit from a computer disk packed with important Advance Auto trade secrets.

Auto Zone agreed this week never to use the disk, which it never has admitted having.

Advance Stores Co. Inc., a Roanoke-based retailer operating Advance Auto stores, filed suit against AutoZone earlier this year. The complaint alleged that a computer disk addressed to an Advance store in Monroe, N.C., was accidentally delivered to an AutoZone store in the same town.

The suit, filed in Roanoke Circuit Court and later transferred to U.S. District Court, alleged that the disk contained company secrets that AutoZone could use for its own "business and economic gain."

A circuit judge entered a temporary injunction in February ordering AutoZone not to use any of the information on the disk.

AutoZone, however, has denied that it ever had the disk. In an effort to assure Advance Auto of that, AutoZone agreed this week to have the temporary injunction converted into a permanent injunction.

AutoZone did not admit any of the allegations in Advance Auto's suit, which has been dismissed from federal court.

Advance, a private, family-owned company started in 1932, is one of the largest companies with headquarters in Roanoke. It operates more than 300 stores in eight states.

An attorney for Advance refused to discuss the settlement with AutoZone.

Automotive Marketing, a trade publication, ranked Advance the 10th-largest U.S. auto-parts retailer, based on the number of stores it operated at the end of 1992. The magazine estimated the company's sales at $320 million in 1992.

AutoZone, a publicly traded, shareholder-owned company, operates 783 stores with sales of $1.22 billion and profit of $140.8 million, according to its 1993 annual report.

Until this year, AutoZone had stayed away from the Roanoke Valley, where Advance has eight retail stores in addition to its headquarters.

But since March, AutoZone has opened two stores in Roanoke and one in Salem. A fourth in Vinton is under construction.

by CNB