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Swedish Match Accused of Using IP Suits To Stifle Competition

By  |  August 4, 2022

Dryft Sciences accused Swedish tobacco giant Swedish Match AB’s American subsidiary of violating antitrust law in Los Angeles federal court by driving it out of the emerging nicotine-pouch market with bogus intellectual property lawsuits.

Dryft said in the Tuesday filing that Swedish Match’s “baseless” patent and trade-secret lawsuits disrupted its oral-nicotine-product business, which it said was worth $458 million at one point.

Dryft was sold to British American Tobacco in 2020 for $150 million, after it said its value had been slashed by Swedish Match’s campaign.

The lawsuit requested $1.2 billion in damages, “representing the difference in price that Dryft was valued at before and after the sham legal actions commenced, as well as the estimated value that Dryft would have achieved.”

“The complaint speaks for itself in terms of how Swedish Match harmed consumers and the marketplace,” former Dryft Sciences president Jason Carignan said.

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