News America Purchases Floorgraphics

Whoa, that’s one way to settle a lawsuit that is going poorly…

Hanging Out on the Bean

News America Marketing, a unit of the News Corporation that produces coupon inserts and sells advertising in supermarkets, settled a lawsuit this week with a competitor that had accused it of anticompetitive behavior and corporate spying.

On Wednesday, News America bought the company, Floorgraphics, outright for an undisclosed sum.

The lawsuit was settled after witnesses began testifying in the trial in federal court in New Jersey. The original lawsuit was filed in 2004.

In a brief statement, a spokeswoman for News America confirmed the acquisition, saying, “We’re pleased to be expanding our network of stores to better serve our customers and we’re very excited to incorporate the quality network so ably developed by Floorgraphics.”

[From News Corp. Unit Settles Suit With a Rival, Then Buys It – NYTimes.com]

Surprising development, actually. Rupert Murdoch must have made FGI an offer they couldn’t refuse.

[more details at Jim Edwards blog: bnet]

4 thoughts on “News America Purchases Floorgraphics

  1. Dogfish says:

    Heard second-hand that News paid FGI’s owners $125,000,000 to settle. Not sure what the sales reps and other staff are getting as far as severance, they all say ‘gag order’, ‘gag order’.

  2. BSF says:

    From a loose lipped lawyer on a train to DC I heard the actual number that FGI walked away with is just over a tenth of that number

  3. 10 million? Really, that’s all? FGI should have held out for more

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.