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IN FEBRUARY 1996, MILLER BREWING Co. of Milwaukee released its secret docent to top company officials detailing its plan to reduce the number of its Arkansas distributors from 12 to five.
The plan, referred to as the White Papers, determined which distributors would survive consolidation and which wouldn't.
Ed Roleson Jr. Inc. of Paragould's distributorship fell into the group that wouldn't survive.
But Mike Roleson - whose father, Ed Roleson, started the distributorship in 1943 - sued Miller in 2002 for trying to force him out of business. A Crittenden County jury recently awarded him $1.6 million, making his company the first distributor to win a jury verdict from Miller over the issue, said one of his attorneys, Tony Wilcox of Jonesboro.
"Miller had this plan in place for years," Wilcox said. "And yet you have family-owed businesses that may have had the opportunity to sell for much more money in the past" if they had known their distributorship was targeted for consolidation.
While that case is being appealed, another lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in Pine Bluff later this year. That case claims that Southeastern Distributing Co. Inc. was forced by Miller Brewing to George O'Connor sell to the lowest bidder. And that bidder allegedly was handpicked by Miller: George O'Connor of Little Rock.
The highest bidder - a group of investors that includes Lloyd Lee and Robert Wyatt Jr., both of Jefferson County - also has sued Miller, charging Miller shut it out of the bidding process by designating O'Connor as the only buyer it would approve for Southeastern.
Both plaintiffs have named O'Connor as a co-defendant, claiming he conspired with Miller to make sure that he was the ultimate buyer of Southeastern. O'Connor and Miller have vehemently denied any wrongdoing in court papers.
O'Connor was unavailable for comment, but his attorney Byron Freeland of Little Rock said it was "nonsense" that O'Connor was involved in a conspiracy with Miller.
"No such thing happened, and we believe we can prove that," he said.
Miller spokesman Mike Hennick declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. Miller's attorneys at King and Spalding LLP of Houston also declined to comment.
But Miller has filed a countersuit charging that Southeastern misstated 4 its sales volume...