the mineral war ends up in court – Corriere.it

The war of mineral waters breaks out. The clashes are Acqua Eva from Paesana and Acqua Sant’Anna from Vinadio. The battle is over in court, the trial will begin on September 22nd. Acqua Eva accuses Sant’Anna of defamation and disruption of trade. The investigations, as she reconstructs The printlasted three years before being indicted: the Prosecutor of Cuneo holds the leaders of Sant’Anna responsible for the publication of an article deemed defamatory entitled: Acqua Eva is a brand owned by Lidl?. The subtitle of the piece, published in 2018, read: the question that large-scale retail buyers have been asking themselves for a few weeks, and in this article we will try to clarify. According to the indictment, the article mixed true information on Acqua Eva’s shareholders and board of directors and false and unfounded news on the fact that the group’s leaders were attributable to Lidl.

The loss of contracts

According to the prosecution, the article would have had serious economic consequences for Acqua Eva di Paesana which, after the publication of the piece, was withdrawn from many shelves and lost important contracts, including one with Renzo Rosso, founder of Diesel and owner of Red Circle Investments. The economic damage estimated at 10 million euros. The investigations would have revealed that www.mercatoalimentare.net, the site that had published the article, was registered in the name of Fernanda Baratta, who died in 2011. As reported by The printnephew Davide Moscato, an employee of Mia Beverage – a company controlled by Acqua Sant’Anna for which Moscato no longer works – during the interrogation in the Public Prosecutor’s Office said that he was the author of the publication and that he had been subjected to strong pressure from Bertone and Cheri, respectively president and CEO of Fonti di Vinadio and commercial director of the company to prepare the article. Alberto Bertone and his commercial director Luca Cheri will go to trial. The former employee instead obtained the suspension for probation.

Acqua Sant’Anna: We will defend ourselves in the appropriate forums

The purpose of the operation, according to the indictment, was to put Acqua Eva in a bad position and damage it on the market. A reconstruction that will have to be demonstrated in court. Sources of Vinadio, responding to the allegations, stated a The print: Trials are held in courtrooms and not in newspapers. Acqua Sant’Anna and Mia Beverage will defend themselves in the appropriate and competent offices with documents in hand.