Meat company complaint against broadcaster could go - leatherbiz: Lea Leatherbiz

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Meat company complaint against broadcaster could go to trial

15/03/2017
A court in South Dakota has decided that a beef company’s complaint that broadcaster ABC “knowingly made false, defamatory and disparaging statements” about its meat can go to trial. The Wall Street Journal and other media have said that special rules in South Dakota governing defamation over food safety matters could mean ABC paying more than  $5 billion in damages to the company making the complaint BPI.

The case goes back to 2012 when BPI filed an original law suit after a series of reports that year from ABC about lean finely textured beef. The meat company refers to this product as LFTB, whereas ABC repeatedly used the term “pink slime” in referring to it.

“As result of the disinformation campaign, BPI sales declined from approximately 2.2 million kilos of LFTB per week to less than one million kilos per week, three BPI facilities have closed and more than 700 employees lost their jobs,” the company said in the original complaint.

It took until March 14 this year for a judge in South Dakota to reject ABC’s bid to have the case dismissed and it will now go to trial. In a statement, ABC it would welcome the opportunity to defend the reports it broadcast on this subject.


Related stories:

US broadcaster settles defamation case with meat company 30/06/2017

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