On 31 March, Florida Southern Court Federal Judge Robert N. Scola, Jnr dismissed Duty Free Americas’ long-running antitrust lawsuit against The Estée Lauder Companies.

 

DFA had originally alleged that Estée Lauder had tried  to force it out of the airport business and brought its action after claiming that ELC’s refusal to supply it with beauty products had acted against its bids for several US airport concessions over a period of four years (case number 0:12-cv-60741 – in the Florida Southern Court).

 

Right: DFA business owners, Leon, Jerome and Simon Falic.

 

However, judge Scola upheld his previous judgment that Lauder’s actions were not anti-competitive and rejected DFA’s assertion that Estée Lauder had attempted to force it out of the airport retail sector and monopolize the beauty product market in duty free shops.

 

He did leave the door open for DFA to revisit the case, but this was to prove unsuccessful.

 

Speaking to TRBusiness in August, Simon Falic said that the case was currently under appeal. “We feel that DFA took a very strong position regarding Lauder’s pricing policy for duty free.

 

“The whole case really is based on the initial action of Lauder to raise the duty free price to the full retail price, and we took a stand. We think the entire industry has benefited from it because ultimately they didn’t implement what they said they were going to.”

 

For the full in-depth report on Duty Free Americas pick up the TRBusiness Top 10 Operators Report 2014 at the TFWA World Exhibition.