AMC Accuses Pepsi Of Contempt of Court

Legal sparring between the American Medical Center and PepsiCo. Inc. escalated Wednesday as the AMC sought a contempt-of-court order to stall the soft-drink company's plans to open a family practice clinic in Moscow.AMC Chairman Dennis Sokol accused PepsiCo. of violating a temporary restraining order issued in Craven County, North Carolina on Friday by holding a press conference and a cocktail party in Moscow this week to meet potential health-care customers. The restraining order bars Pepsi and its agents from soliciting any customers on the American Medical Center's client list, using any of its trade secrets, or "taking any steps to compete" with it until confidential data which Pepsi possesses is "no longer of value."A spokeswoman for Pepsi's joint venture partner in the project, Columbia-Presbyterian, said Wednesday it was observing the restraining order and would not comment further.At issue are AMC documents including complete three-year business plans and detailed client lists which Sokol and the center's chief doctor, Myles Druckman, said PepsiCo and Columbia-Presbyterian obtained by posing as an educational project. "It's not that we're against competition, it's just we spent three years of footwork here figuring out how the system works, and then we had it taken from us in ways that were not appropriate," Druckman said.Sokol said a preliminary injunction hearing planned for early next week could bar the partners from establishing their clinic for a year and a half or more. On Tuesday, during a Moscow cocktail reception, Christoph Adamsky, vice president of PepsiCo. World Trading Inc., said that his lawyers believed the restraining order was improperly served and unenforceable. Adamsky denied that the company misrepresented itself in dealing with the center.