Defendants 'Largely Failed' to Show Documents 'Privileged' in Local Ad Suit: Special Master
The special master in Local TV Advertising Antitrust Litigation, retired Judge Richard Levie, recommended (docket 1:18-cv-06785) Wednesday the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago grant in part and deny in part local TV advertising plaintiffs’ motion to compel…
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production of antitrust compliance documents from defendants Nexstar, Raycom, Scripps and Tegna. Defendants “largely failed to carry their burdens to establish that the attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine applied to the documents they claimed were privileged,” said Levie's report. CBS, Fox, Cox Media and ShareBuilders agreed in May to a $48 million settlement with advertisers in the lawsuit stemming from a 2018 DOJ investigation of ad price collusion that arose during inquiries into the failed Sinclair/Tribune deal. The non-settling defendants -- Tegna, Griffin Communications, Meredith, Sinclair, Gray Media, E.W. Scripps, Nexstar Media and Tribune Broadcasting -- don’t oppose the “substance” of the partial settlements; they oppose certain aspects of the proposed notice process, recipients of the proposed notice and the content of the notices. Tegna, Raycom (now Gray Media) and Meredith moved the court to reconsider and vacate the portion of its order that compels them to turn over their customer contact information to plaintiffs’ counsel “without any restriction or limitation on its use.”