US: Landmark’s suit charges Regal with “Monopoly Power” In D.C.

Landmark filed an antitrust suit at the U.S. District Court in D.C. against industry leader Regal.

It alleges that the exhibition giant used its “monopoly power” in the Nation’s Capitol to prevent Landmark’s Atlantic Plumbing Cinema — which opened in October — from showing films including Burnt, Our Brand Is Crisis, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2, Spectre, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

When Atlantic Plumbing asked the major studios to license their hits, “Each and every one of them responded that Regal’s Gallery Place was asserting a blanket clearance over — i.e. was refusing to play and commercial films day and date with — Landmark’s Atlantic Plumbing theater” which is over a mile away from Regal’s Gallery Place.

The commercial films Atlantic Plumbing has been able to secure “are generally much less desirable and in demand” — such as Love the Coopers.

The suit asks the court to overturn Regal’s clearance agreements, and award Landmark three times its damages, litigation expenses and require the No. 1 chain to disgorge “all unlawfully obtained profits.”

The Justice Department and several state Attorneys General are looking at whether clearance deals by all of the major chains are anticompetitive. Last year Regal CFO David Ownby, responding to a question about the government investigations, told an investor gathering that clearances “have always been upheld” in courts and that they’re “good” for customers and the industry.

Full content: The Wrap

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