Coca Cola 2007 Annual Report Download - page 22

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ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
The Company is involved in various legal proceedings, including the proceedings specifically discussed below.
Management of the Company believes that any liability to the Company that may arise as a result of these proceedings
will not have a material adverse effect on the financial condition of the Company and its subsidiaries taken as a whole.
Carpenters
On October 27, 2000, a class action lawsuit (Carpenters Health & Welfare Fund of Philadelphia & Vicinity v. The
Coca-Cola Company, et al.) was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia alleging
that the Company, M. Douglas Ivester, Jack L. Stahl and James E. Chestnut violated antifraud provisions of the federal
securities laws by making misrepresentations or material omissions relating to the Company’s financial condition and
prospects in late 1999 and early 2000. A second, largely identical lawsuit (Gaetan LaValla v. The Coca-Cola Company,
et al.) was filed in the same court on November 9, 2000. The complaints allege that the Company and the individual
named officers: (1) forced certain Coca-Cola system bottlers to accept “excessive, unwanted and unneeded” sales of
concentrate during the third and fourth quarters of 1999, thus creating a misleading sense of improvement in our
Company’s performance in those quarters; (2) failed to write down the value of impaired assets in Russia, Japan and
elsewhere on a timely basis, again resulting in the presentation of misleading interim financial results in the third and
fourth quarters of 1999; and (3) misrepresented the reasons for Mr. Ivester’s departure from the Company and then
misleadingly reassured the financial community that there would be no changes in the Company’s core business
strategy or financial outlook following that departure. Damages in an unspecified amount are sought in both
complaints.
On January 8, 2001, an order was entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia
consolidating the two cases for all purposes. The Court also ordered the plaintiffs to file a Consolidated Amended
Complaint. On July 25, 2001, the plaintiffs filed a Consolidated Amended Complaint, which largely repeated the
allegations made in the original complaints and added Douglas N. Daft as an additional defendant.
On September 25, 2001, the defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss all counts of the Consolidated Amended
Complaint. On August 20, 2002, the Court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. The
Court also granted the plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to Amend the Complaint. On September 4, 2002, the defendants
filed a Motion for Partial Reconsideration of the Court’s August 20, 2002 ruling. The motion was denied by the Court
on April 15, 2003.
On June 2, 2003, the plaintiffs filed an Amended Consolidated Complaint. The defendants moved to dismiss the
Amended Complaint on June 30, 2003. On March 31, 2004, the Court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’
Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint. In its order, the Court dismissed a number of the plaintiffs’ allegations,
including the claim that the Company made knowingly false statements to financial analysts. The Court permitted the
remainder of the allegations to proceed to discovery. The Court denied the plaintiffs’ request for leave to further amend
and replead their complaint. The fact discovery closed on March 23, 2007, pursuant to the Court’s order. However,
there remain certain unresolved issues relating to discovery pending before the Court.
In August 2007, the Court heard oral argument on plaintiffs’ motion to certify the class and the Company’s
opposition thereto. A ruling on that motion is currently pending before the Court. In October 2007, the Company filed
various motions for summary judgment and related relief. Briefing on the Company’s motions is ongoing.
The Company believes it has substantial legal and factual defenses to the plaintiffs’ claims.
Aqua-Chem Litigation
On December 20, 2002, the Company filed a lawsuit (The Coca-Cola Company v. Aqua-Chem, Inc., Civil Action
No. 2002CV631-50) in the Superior Court, Fulton County, Georgia (the “Georgia Case”), seeking a declaratory
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