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- <text id=89TT2083>
- <title>
- Aug. 14, 1989: Business Notes:Lawsuits
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 14, 1989 The Hostage Agony
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 55
- Business Notes
- LAWSUITS
- Libel on The Line
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The Home Shopping Network in Clearwater, Fla., has bought
- into a spree of bad luck. The company, which markets consumer
- goods on its phone-in TV shows, has made a series of
- ill-advised acquisitions; its stock price has slipped from a
- 1987 high of $47 a share to less than $4; and it faces a
- class-action stockholder lawsuit. Last week came more bad news.
- A jury in Pinellas County ordered HSN to pay GTE $100 million
- in libel damages. That is the largest libel award in history.
- </p>
- <p> HSN sued GTE in September 1987, charging that a fouled-up
- GTE phone system had cost it $388 million in profits. GTE
- countersued, saying the losses were due to mismanagement and
- that HSN's press release complaining about GTE's phone service
- amounted to libel. HSN, arguing that the suit and countersuit
- should have been tried separately, plans to appeal. Says general
- counsel Nando DiFilippo: "We are confident that HSN will
- prevail."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-