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Dazs from Mr. Mattus. Pillsbury promptly initiated a business
plan to consolidate the distribution of H�agen-Dazs ice cream
products into its own distribution centers, with the goal of
delivering directly to retail stores, especially large
supermarket chains. Pillsbury believed it could deliver a
uniformly higher quality product to supermarkets at lower cost
than independent distributors whose refrigeration equipment was
not as reliable. Pillsbury believed that ensuring high quality
was vital to its basic corporate strategy of continuing to
differentiate H�agen-Dazs products from those of its competitors.
Another important component of the H�agen-Dazs corporate
strategy was to enter into written distribution contracts,
explicitly terminable at will by H�agen-Dazs on short notice,
with distributors that it was not ready to buy out. Since 1974,
MIC, like other regional distributors, had distributed H�agen-
Dazs products on the basis of Arnold’s original oral agreement
with Mr. Mattus. After its acquisition by Pillsbury, H�agen-Dazs
always maintained that distributors such as MIC did not have
enforceable rights to continue to distribute H�agen-Dazs ice
cream. In June 1988, the U.S. District Court, Northern District
of California, MDL docket No. 682, ordered summary judgment in
favor of H�agen-Dazs against a terminated distributor who had
distributed ice cream products for a direct competitor.3 The
3 In re Super Premium Ice Cream Distribution Antitrust
Litig., 691 F. Supp. 1262 (N.D. Cal. 1988), affd. without
(continued...)
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