This month, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an opinion in Arena Restaurant and Lounge, Inc. v. Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, No. 17-CV-03805-LHK. The Arena case, also called Nguyen after its original named Plaintiff, seeks to certify a class action against Southern Glazer’s for a wide range of allegedly fraudulent, deceptive, and otherwise illegal acts related to the sale and distribution of wine and spirits in California. The court’s recent order, issued on April 9 and amended on April 16, 2018, dismisses all claims brought by the Plaintiffs in their Second Amendment Complaint (SAC). Significantly, however, the court will allow the Plaintiffs to file an amended complaint within 30 days in an attempt to cure defects in many of the SAC’s claims.

At the center of the Arena case are allegations that Southern Glazer’s engaged in practices such as selling to unlicensed persons and hiding such sales by recording them as sales to licensed retailers like the Plaintiffs. These “phantom” sales, in turn, allegedly created tax problems for the Plaintiff retailers. The SAC also alleges price discrimination between different retailers, selling to retailers without delivering the inventory in order to meet sales quotas, engaging in giveaways of free product to retailers, engaging in illegal “tie-in sales” practices, and a host of other alleged wrongs. The SAC packages these wide-ranging allegations into no fewer than eleven claims for relief.

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