The court battle between the makers of Equal and Splenda appears to be getting more bitter by the day with court filings that paint starkly different pictures of how the two companies view the last-minute settlement they struck just as a federal court jury was poised to hand up its verdict.
On May 11, after a monthlong trial, Equal’s maker, Merisant Co., and Splenda’s maker, McNeil Nutritionals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, announced that they had struck a confidential settlement of a suit in which Merisant claimed that Splenda’s slogan — “Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar” — is false and misleading advertising.
