Jury awards Dyson $16.4m in false advertising clash
A jury at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division has awarded vacuum maker Dyson $16.4 million in damages in a four-year dispute over false advertising.
On Monday, June 11, the jury awarded the damages after a ten-day trial, finding that industry rival SharkNinja had falsely advertised its product as better than Dyson's vacuum, which Dyson had claimed was its best-performing product on the market.
Dyson filed its lawsuit (pdf) back in November 2014, accusing SharkNinja of violating the Lanham Act by running an advertising campaign in 2014 for its upright vacuum cleaner product, the Shark Rotator Powered Lift-Away, which falsely claimed that the product was superior to Dyson’s DC65 upright vacuum.
SharkNinja’s campaign ran between August and December 2014 and included internet advertising along with print adverts. The adverts asserted that the claims of superiority were based on “independent lab testing”.
“Knowing it cannot compete with Dyson’s superior technology and innovation, [SharkNinja] instead attempts to compete with Dyson through false and aggressive advertising,” said the claim.
While SharkNinja had claimed that its product outperforms the DC65 on one type of carpet by nearly 15%, Dyson said that “robust independent testing” shows that the claims are false.
While Dyson’s motion for a preliminary injunction was denied in October 2015, the vacuum maker continued its fight against SharkNinja.
The jury was allowed to ask questions and returned a verdict after two hours, according to Kirkland & Ellis, the law firm representing Dyson.
Gregg LoCascio, partner at Kirkland & Ellis, said: “It took Dyson four years to bring Shark’s deceptive advertising before a jury and hold them accountable, but they were committed to the cause given the nature of the claims and Shark’s intentional efforts to deceive consumers.”
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