Egyptian bottling company suing Coca-Cola.

Egyptian bottling company, S ociete Nationale D'Industires Nutritave (SONUT), is suing Atlanta-based Coca-Cola for US$ 200 million, claiming that the American giant tried to force it out of business.

SONUT, which bottles Schweppes in Egypt, said on its Website that Coca-Cola atte mpted to undercut and run it out of business after it refused to sell its shares

at below market value.

In the lawsuit, SONUT argues that Coca-Cola put together an "integrated" or "sin gle" bottler strategy in an attempt to consolidate SONUT's business with Coca-Co l a Egypt.

According to SONUT, the strategy was to force SONUT into "selling its assets and operations below market value."

When that failed, Coca-Cola attempted to force the Egyptian bottler out of busin ess, the lawsuit claims.

SONUT is the exclusive bottler and distributor of Schweppes products in Egypt.

It has made Schweppes products in Egypt since 1995, relying on syrups and bevera ge concentrates that Coca-Cola controls through several subsidiaries.

"The result has been that 1,650 Egyptian employees are in immediate peril of bei ng thrown out of work and SONUT's business is being destroyed," according to cou r t documents.

The suit claims that SONUT has built the Schweppes brand over 13 years from no p resence at all to more than 10.5 million cases made, bottled and sold in 2007.

It runs a state-of-the-art bottling plant in Cairo.

In the suit, filed 18 November in US District Court in Atlanta, SONUT is asking for US$ 100 million in compensatory damages plus US$ 100 million in punitive dam a ges.

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