Business News
Federal News Service Files Suit Against Congressional Quarterly, Its Parent Companies the Times Publishing Co. and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and Morningside Partners
Friday 03. July 2009 - Federal News Service, Inc. ("FNS") today announced it filed a lawsuit against Congressional Quarterly, Inc., its parent companies Times Publishing Company, and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, its subsidiary CQ Transcriptions, Inc., and its exclusive vendor Morningside Partners, LLC.
The lawsuit also named as Defendants Congressional Quarterly’s President, Robert Merry, and Stephen Carr Davis and Anthony O’Brien, co-owners of Morningside Partners. The complaint was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. and alleges that the Defendants, through a series of anticompetitive acts and practices, attempted to monopolize the fast turnaround verbatim transcript market and force FNS out of business.
Specifically, the complaint alleges that as early as 2004, Congressional Quarterly and the other Defendants conspired to create and enacted a plan to destroy and/or weaken FNS and pursued a broad course of predatory conduct over a period of years, which included the following acts:
— Engaging in corporate espionage and corporate theft to obtain
proprietary, confidential and privileged FNS information;
— Engaging in systematic, illegal access to and taking from FNS
corporate online databases and stealing proprietary copyrighted and
trademarked products and other confidential materials;
— Engaging in predatory and anticompetitive hiring practices aimed at
taking away key FNS employees;
— Engaging in a series of attempts to acquire FNS in order to eliminate
FNS from the market; and,
— Engaging in an anticompetitive strategy of bundling its non-transcript
products at no cost with its transcript products.
FNS brings this complaint to stop Defendants’ illegal activities and theft, and to prevent Defendants from using the materials illegally acquired to compete unfairly against FNS. FNS also seeks compensation for its injuries caused by Defendants’ pattern of unlawful conduct and to restore competition to the marketplace.
Federal News Service was founded in 1985 and provides fast turnaround verbatim transcripts of Congressional hearings, U.S. government briefings, speeches, press conferences and interviews to a broad range of media, corporate and international clients. The company also provides transcription services to many U.S. Government agencies, Congressional committees, media organizations and think tanks, among others.
Federal News Service is privately held and the only truly independent transcript service of its kind not owned or affiliated with any other media organization, domestic or foreign, and is the “trusted source” relied upon by those individuals and organizations that need to know the exact words spoken at these important events each day.