Court orders PepsiCo to pay $1.26 billion for inability to appear in court

A court in Wisconsin ordered the Pepsi Cola company to pay two men who sued the giant soft-drink company $1.26 billion for allegedly stealing their idea to market purified water in bottles.

PepsiCo Inc. claims it wasn’t even aware of the suit against it until Oct. 6.  The Wisconsin state court made the decision to award the damages last Sept. 30.

James Voigt and Charles Joyce accused PepsiCo of misusing trade secrets after confidential talks the complainants had in 1981 with distributors on marketing purified water.  Voight and Joyce said that PepsiCo received the information improperly and it soon developed and sold the Aquafina brand of bottled water.

PepsiCo admitted that legal document regarding the case reached its law department’s office of Deputy General Counsel Tom Tamoney last Sept. 15, but secretary Kathy Henry didn’t give it much attention because she supposedly was “so busy preparing for a board meeting.”

[via finance.yahoo.com; image: weblo.com]