In a court battle between the makers of the nation’s leading sugar substitutes — Equal and Splenda — a federal judge has ruled that a jury must decide whether Splenda is misleading consumers by claiming in its ads and on its packaging that the product is “made from sugar so it tastes like sugar.”
In her 64-page opinion in Merisant Co. v. McNeil Nutritionals, U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter refused to dismiss the suit on summary judgment after rejecting a defense argument that Splenda’s claim is literally true.
