Supreme Court to Review Electronics Dumping Case

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a 15-year-old antitrust lawsuit in which Zenith Radio Corp. and another U.S. maker of electronic products seek billions of dollars from their Japanese competitors.

In another case, the high court let stand a ruling that businesses selling videotapes of stories taken from television news broadcasts violate federal copyright law.

The court said it would review a decision that, if upheld, would force major Japanese electronics manufacturers to defend themselves at trial against charges that they conspired to illegally “dump” products in this country at artificially low prices.

A federal judge threw out the suit in 1981, ruling that Zenith and National Union Electric Corp., formerly known as Emerson Radio Co., failed to offer any evidence of a conspiracy.

But the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the suit in late 1983, clearing the way for a trial against Sanyo Electric Co., Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sharp Corp., their trading companies and U.S. subsidiaries.

Should Study Evidence

The appeals court said evidence provided by Zenith and National Union should be studied further at a trial.

The appeals court, however, upheld that part of the judge’s order dismissing as defendants Sony Corp., Motorola Inc. and Sears, Roebuck & Co.

National Union first sued in 1970, and Zenith joined in the legal dispute by filing a separate suit in 1974. The suits, later consolidated, allege that the Japanese defendants conspired to drive their U.S. rivals out of business.

Lawyers for Zenith and National Union contend that the plan was to drive down U.S. prices for TVs and other electronic products by exporting huge amounts at unfairly low prices--”a predatory international trade practice known as dumping.”

In seeking to kill the suit, lawyers for the Japanese manufacturers told the justices: “This court provides the only opportunity to obtain review . . . before this case is remanded for years more of unnecessary, costly and burdensome litigation.”

Videotape Decision

In the videotape case, the Supreme Court, without comment, turned down the appeal of a “broadcast monitor” business in Atlanta, called TV News Clips, which was ordered to stop taping-for-sale stories aired on station WXIA-TV in Atlanta.

TV News Clips tapes televised newscasts and sells videotapes of individual stories, called videoclips, to various clients--often the subjects of the news stories.

“A broadcast monitoring service is to the electronic media what a newspaper clipping service is to the print media,” TV News Clips’ appeal said.

WXIA-TV, owned by Pacific & Southern Co., sued TV News Clips in 1981 after that company sold a copy of a news story aired by the station to Floyd Junior College, the story’s subject.

The suit sought $50,000 in damages and a permanent injunction barring TV News Clips from monitoring its newscasts for such commercial purposes.

A federal trial judge ruled that TV News Clips’ use of the taped newscasts infringed WXIA’s copyright of the material but refused to impose a permanent injunction. The judge awarded WXIA only $35 in damages.

WXIA-TV appealed only that part of the judge’s order denying an injunction.