Legal: Becton appeals $114M antitrust loss to Retractable Technologies

As promised, Becton Dickinson & Co. (NYSE:BDX) filed an appeal, hoping to overturn a $113.5 million legal loss to long-time rival Retractable Technologies (NYSE:RVP).

Becton asked a Texas court to reconsider the lawsuit on the grounds that RTI’s attorneys "failed to present sufficient evidence" to support the ruling, handed down last month, that BD violated the Lanham Act’s false advertising proscription.

A jury in September ruled in favor of Retractable Technologies, finding that BD used deception to monopolize the market for safety syringes. The jury awarded RTI a little more than $13.5 million for "deception regarding safety syringes," according to court documents.

BD asked the court to reconsider the ruling, given that the jury rejected all of RTI’s claims of "anticompetitive contracting" and ruled only that BD engaged in attempted monopolization. BD maintained that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the matter of monopolization and that further argued that RTI had failed to produce substantial evidence that BD had engaged in "exclusionary" conduct.

"Even if false advertising, disparagement or patent infringement could in theory constitute exclusionary conduct, far more than harm to a competitor (like RTI) would be necessary to establish that the conduct posed a ‘significant and enduring adverse impact to competition itself’," BD said in legal filings. "There is no substantial evidence to show that BD’s advertising, disparagement (‘tainting’), or patent infringement threatened to destroy competition itself in the safety syringe market."

BD had vowed last month to appeal RTI’s win, saying that the company was "disappointed" with a verdict it deemed "erroneous." The case has dragged on for some 6 years, with patent infringement accusations stemming back to 2007,  when Retractable sued on allegations that Becton’s Integra syringes infringe patents covering its competing VanishPoint devices.

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