Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) through its Groupo Modelo unit, responded Monday in arguments over the rights of Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ) to sell Corona Hard Seltzer in the United States.
As previously reported, the Mexican division of A-B, Cervecería Modelo, S. de R.L. de C.V. (“Groupo Modelo”), filed a lawsuit in February in Federal Court to stop Constellation from selling Corona Hard Seltzer in the US. The plaintiff argues that it sold rights to Constellation in 2013 for it to sell Corona beer, not Corona hard seltzer. Filings were made in U.S. district court of the southern district of New York.
Groupo Modelo owns rights to the Corona name for all beverage products in Mexico and other countries outside of the US. Constellation has exclusive rights to Corona sales and distribution in the 50 US states.
On Monday, Groupo Modelo officially filed a 36-page document in response to Constellation’s motion to dismiss the case, saying that Corona hard seltzer “does not taste, look, or pour like, or have the ingredients of, a beer.”
“It defies logic that ‘beverages that are not ‘beers’ or ‘malt beverages’’ could be ‘a particular form’ of a ‘beer’ or
‘malt beverage,’ as required to be a ‘version” under Constellation’s own definition of the term,” the filing stated in one of its points.
The outcome of the case could have lasting impacts on the definition and treatment of hard seltzer as its own category.
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