Do you girls remember on fashionhag.com someone had posted in the general chat section, concerning a lawsuit that involved all cosemetics brands sold at the mall. It was also on the news and encouraged people who purchased products from a period of time, to fill out a form, and once the case was settled it would contact these people to go to the malls and be able to recieve a certain amount of free cosemtics. Anybody remember this????
It was the Estee Lauder companies and they were going to have a one-day giveaway as part of the settlement. Don't know if that has happened yet. Maybe a web search would reveal something?
Deal: Among stores and cosmetics makers, Estee Lauder’s share of price-fixing settlement totaled $13.5 million.
Estee Lauder, maker of Clinique and Bobbi Brown cosmetics, said it and 13 other companies including Chanel and retailers including Federated and Neiman Marcus agreed to settle a price-fixing lawsuit.
In the settlement, the defendants agreed to provide $175 million in free products to some cosmetics users and as much as $24 million for the plaintiffs' legal costs, Estee Lauder said.
Estee Lauder's portion was $13.5 million, or 6 cents a share, the company said in a regulatory filing.
A source close to one defendant said the free give-away to consumers will take place at retail stores.
"When we figure it all out, we'll advertise and put information on our Web sites," the source said.
Cosmetics buyers accused the companies of price fixing in a California lawsuit first filed in 1998.
Estee Lauder didn't admit wrongdoing and settled "solely to avoid protracted and costly litigation," a regulatory filing said.
Estee Lauder is the biggest sinngle seller of cosmetics seller to department stores. The suit also alleged that the defendants tried to limit the supply of "prestige" cosmetics sold by the stores.
Besides Federated, owner of Macy's and Bloomingdale's, other defendants include Saks, L'Oreal and Target, among others.
Meanwhile, Estee Lauder said yesterday it has agreed on a new 15-year lease for its headquarters in the General Motors building on Fifth Avenue at E. 59th Street.
The lease, for 310,000 square feet, will take effect when its existing lease expires in April 2005.