CHARGES AGAINST NESTLE OFFICIALS STILL PENDING

"This Could Be The Tipping Point"
by Emil Jurado
04 January 2012, TO THE POINT, Manila Standard Today
(Original article available online here).

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Last month, I wrote about developments on the charges filed at the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City against five top officers of Nestle Philippines Inc. Its senior vice president and head legal officer took exception to some items raised in my column about the case.

In its letter to the editor of this newspaper published last December 22, NPI claimed that the complaints of predatory pricing filed against the company by two of its former distributors have been dismissed via a resolution of the QC Prosecutor’s Office dated December 5, 2011.

However, that claim, according to noted lawyer Lorna Patajo Kapunan, is “blatantly inaccurate and misleading.” She says that the Resolution is still the subject of a pending petition for review filed in behalf of the distributors by Kapunan Garcia and Castillo Law Offices before the Department of Justice.

Kapunan points out that the Motion to Withdraw filed in the Regional Trial Court by the Office of the City Prosecutor of Quezon City is still pending, and the outcome of the motion has not been resolved nor granted by the presiding judge. In short, the criminal case filed against the Nestle executives still stands.

But I must have been affected by the holiday daze when I typed out that Nestle was adjudged Employer of the Year during the Philippine Advertising Congress held early last month. “Employer” should have been “Advertiser” and there’s no question about that. Nestle did unload a huge advertising outlay to drum up its 100 years existence in the Philippines. Its prestigious presence here now stands in the balance depending on the outcome of these cases which have a direct bearing on current moves to finally introduce the long overdue Anti-Trust Law.

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